Doctor Who: The Vanishing of Penelope Kelsey
by phantom-lexicon
Summary: The 13th Doctor finds herself unexpectedly reunited with Rose Tyler and John Smith (the Doctor/Donna) to find a missing girl.
1. Chapter 1

It is snowing in Hopwich Heath.

Up on a hill, separated from the town proper by several fields which, in better weather, are filled with sheep, lies the house of Doctor Adrian Kelsey.

Upstairs, in the last room on the left, a girl of perhaps six or seven is asleep under several heavy blankets.

There is a sound from within the walls, a slow creaking, then a slithering. Dust begins to sift down from the place where the ceiling meets the wall.

The girl wakes up, clutching her cloth doll tightly to her chest.

There is a creaking, sliding sound from the closet, then a light appears at the crack under the door. The girl pulls the blanket up to her chest, staring at the closet with her eyes wide.

The closet door rattles, then springs open. The girl screams.

A door down the hall is thrown open, and her father rushes out. He tries to open her door, finds it locked, throws his shoulder into it several times and finally manages to break it open. He is looking into an empty room strewn with bedclothes.

"Penny?" He looks under the bed, opens the closet door and peers inside, even checks inside the toy chest. "Penny, where are you!"

...

Rose Tyler opens the bathroom door and finds another world.

She blinks blearily at a scene that doesn't make any sense. She should be looking at the familiar frosted glass shower door and pale blue linoleum tile. What she sees, however, is a snow filled street lined with tall, stone buildings. The sky and windows are dark, the only light comes from flickering gas lamps on high poles.

"John?" She calls, edging a toe toward the snow that has tumbled through the door and is now melting on the carpet.

"I told you, spiders are our friends." John Smith mumbles from under the blanket.

"John, get up." Rose doesn't want to take her eyes from the doorway, just in case shifting her attention makes it vanish.

"Isn't it Saturday?" He groans.

" _ _JohnSmithTheDoctorDonna__ there is a city in our bathroom." Rose says loudly.

For several seconds there is no response, then John tosses the covers off. "I'm sorry, did you just say a city?"

Rose doesn't bother to answer, since he is already pulling her to the side to peer past.

"Oh, oh my. Now, that's something special, isn't it. Happy birthday to me." John murmurs.

A cold wind hits her back, and Rose turns around. She grabs John's arm, and he nods, not needing to speak. Their bedroom has vanished, they are now standing in the middle of a snow covered street.

Both of them are barefoot and in their nightclothes, slammed with icy shock the two of them stumble up off of the street and into the shelter of a nearby shop door. John peers through the dark window, then snatches up a boot scraper and smashes one of the glass panels on the door, reaches through and opens the lock.

"Breaking and entering?" Rose hisses, huffing air into her hands.

"Larceny." John flashes her a grin. "Unless you'd rather freeze."

Rose laughs. "Corsets, oh God, what year is it? I don't have to squeeze my guts up into my rib cage, do I?"

"Define 'squeeze'." John says. "And, ah, no, not particularly. Looks like...November, 1895, at least that's the last time this calender was changed."

Rose has worn this sort of complicated clothing before, but it's been years, and it takes her several minutes to assemble outer and inner garments. When she's finished tugging the wool dress into place, John hands her a coat and gloves, and they step back out onto the street.

"That clock says quarter to eleven." Rose comments. "Where is everybody, I wonder?"

"That's a very good question. And it's not just people, I haven't seen a single animal, either, have you?"

Rose shakes her head. "Nothing. If everybody is gone, then who lit the gas lights?"

"They may have vanished at night." John leans down and pokes his finger into a low drift against the side of a building. "Crunchy- it's been snowing at night, then getting warm enough in the day to melt it just a little- they haven't cleared the street, though. It must have been at least three or four days since anybody, human or animal, has come through here."

They have been walking for around fifteen minutes, by the church bell that chimes and makes both of them jump, when they finally see signs of life- a single set of footprints meandering down a cross street.

"Female, 5'6, around 120 pounds." John drops to his haunches to peer at the tracks, touches one and rubs the snow between his gloved fingers. "Blond hair, blue coat..."

"Oh, come on, how could you possibly know that from a footprint." Rose huffs.

"She's standing right there." John jerks his chin up.

Rose looks around and sees her, leaning casually against the wall of a nearby alley, watching them with an expression of mixed interest and amusement. When she sees they've spotted her, she shoves herself upright and strolls over.

"Well, hello!" The stranger says brightly.

"Hello." John straightens up.

"I never expected to see the two of you again." She glances over at Rose. "And you're all fancy, too! You look lovely, my dear."

"Ah, thank you?" Apparently this person knows them, but Rose is almost certain she's never seen the woman before.

"How did you get here?"

"We just sort of...did." Rose looks over at John for help, but he's staring at the woman as though he's trying to x-ray her with his eyes.

"Really." The stranger reaches into her pocket and pulls out something that looks suspiciously like a sonic screwdriver, waves it over both of them. "Well, you're you, I suppose that should come as somewhat of a relief. When did you get here?"

"Ten forty five." John finally speaks up.

"And you've been walking around since then?"

"Yes." A smile has started to spread across his face.

"Have you seen anything, animals or..."

Rose shakes her head.

"Hm, lets run a little experiment. Everybody, still and quiet."

"What-" Rose starts.

"Sssh!" The stranger puts a finger against her own lips in a silencing motion, gives Rose a slightly irritated look.

Rose raises her own finger almost instinctively, looks over at John who has mimicked the gesture over his widening grin.

For what feels like a very long time they stand there, with nothing but the sound of their own breath and the snow that has begun to fall again. Rose is about to drop her hand and break the silence when there is a sound from somewhere down the street, a sort of soft shuffling.

The snow begins to fall more heavily, obscuring their view. Something large and dark moves out of one of the side streets, is joined by two others. Huge, heavy, shaggy forms. The one in front lifts it's head and emits a deep, wailing howl.

Rose stiffens, takes a step back to press herself against John.

"Easy." The stranger murmurs, holding a hand out toward her.

The animals begin to move forward, walking slowly, heads lowered. Rose can see their bright golden eyes in the gas lamps.

"Everybody, very calmly now, turn around and walk away."

Rose hesitates, but John pulls her around and nudges her along. She glances over and sees that the strange woman is moving backwards, watching behind them. After a moment, John and Rose both turn to look over their shoulders.

The shadowy creatures have stopped following them, now they move as one to turn and lope off back they way they had come, quickly vanishing and seeming to take the falling snow with them.

"The wolves are running." John Smith says in a low voice.

"Indeed." The stranger says. "But running for who, I wonder?"

"Hello, Doctor." John says.

"Oh, yes, hello." She waves a hand at them vaguely.

"No." Rose says.

"Sorry?" The Doctor blinks at her in confusion.

"You're a girl."

"What? Oh, yes." She rolls her eyes. "Yes, yes I am."

"And you're...you...right?"

"Yes, I'm me. I have a very difficult time being anybody else.

"So, wait, how are we in the same place? I thought you sealed the dimensions or whatever."

"I did. And, well, to be perfectly fair, we're sort of...between...I think. It nabbed me right after I stepped out of the Tardis."

"Where is she?" John asks.

"Aaah, out of sync." The Doctor sighs.

"So, how do we get out?" Rose asks.

"That," The Doctor says "is a very good question. If we stop and stand still for long enough, the wolves will come back. The question is, what happens if we don't move on?"

"There's one way to find out." John says.

Rose reaches out and takes his hand, they fall silent and stand still, waiting. After a few minutes the snow comes up again, the wolves slink out from an alley and begin to approach. Once again, the one in the lead howls. They lower their heads, stalking toward them, hackles raising and bodies dropping closer to the ground, prepared to pounce.

The animals are huge, the size of small ponies, as they draw closer Rose can see snow and ice crystals hanging from the shaggy fur, puffs of steam rising from lolling tongues and sharp white teeth.

When they are perhaps ten feet away, the animals stop moving, the air fills with their heavy, low growl. Rose looks over and sees that the Doctor is standing with her hands in her pockets, eyes locked on the head wolf.

They can't have stood like that for more than ten or fifteen seconds, but it feels like an eternity. Finally, the wolves back away and within moments have vanished again, though the snow is still falling.

"Interesting." The Doctor says. "Lets see what happens now."

They have been waiting for almost a full minute before they hear a new sound, heavy metallic footsteps.

"Ah, moving off of the standard intimidation tactics. It's tailoring itself to us." The Doctor says.

Glowing eyes appear through the snow, then the dark, human shaped outlines.

"Cybermen." Rose says.

The Doctor nods. There are three of them, tall silver men lift their arms offensively, approach to stop, like the wolves, near to them.

"You will be upgraded." One of them says.

"No thank you." The Doctor says.

One of them points to Rose. "You will come with us, you will be upgraded."

"I'm good, thanks." Rose says.

The Cybermen hesitate, seeming uncertain. The snow blows up suddenly, very hard, obscuring their view. When it clears the Cybermen are gone, replaced with three deep gray Daleks.

"Exterminate!" One of them screams.

"Go ahead!" The Doctor says. "Shoot us. Come on, you're a Dalek. Exterminate. Do it! Do it! Do it, do-it-do-it-do-it-do-it dooooo iiiiit!"

The Dalek waves it's gun and plunger at them, but seems disheartened by their lack of reaction.

"Ha, you can't, can you! You can't do anything. And you know why? Because-" The Doctor takes a few quick steps, pokes the Dalek to emphasize her words "you're not ree-aal."

The Daleks dissolve into puffs of snow which blow away and are lost among the other drifting flakes.

"Now what" Rose asks.

"Well, it's found it can't drive us forward from behind- so the next thing should be..."

The snow starts to build again, heavier, and the three draw close together.

A female voice echoes through from somewhere down the street.

"Doctor?" A pause. "Sweetie? Where are you?"

The voice is unfamiliar, but Rose sees the Doctor wince and tense, it must be someone she knows. John shoots her a sideways glance.

"Nice try." The Doctor calls.

"Please...help me...they're coming!" A note of panic.

The Doctor rolls her eyes. "Oh, please. You should have picked someone else to be your damsel in distress."

The woman's voice sobs for a moment, the sound is absolutely heartbreaking, but soon fades into silence.

The streetlights begin to go out. The snow is coming down hard enough so it takes a moment for the darkness to work it's way toward them. The line of light seems to form a sharp barrier, behind which there is a deep wall of black.

A horn blasts from behind them, accompanied by a loud clacking sound. All of them turn instinctively to look.

A passenger train is pulling up, billowing smoke and steam into the cold air. The city around them has abruptly vanished, replaced by the wooden platform and building of a train station.

The engine rolls to a complete stop, hisses softly. The doors of all the passenger cars open, but no people get out.

They take a walk up and down the platform, the doors are all locked, interior lights off. The Doctor tries the sonic screwdriver, which unlocks the ticket sales door, and pulls it open. On the other side of the door, they find a steep drop, a sheer dark cliff face, beyond which there is nothing but blackness.

Someone is ringing a bell. It turns out to be a conductor in a navy blue uniform and hat, leaning from one of the doors.

"All aboard!" He calls cheerily when he sees they have noticed him.

"Excuse me, where does this train go to?" The Doctor asks.

"It's not 'to' you should be worried about." The Conductor says. "It's 'from'."

"What's it going away from?"

"Them." The Conductor lifts his chin.

Wolves have appeared again, filling the platform on either side. These are smaller than the spectral animals they had seen before, more real, the smell of hot breath and wet fur drifts over on the wind.

"They're out for blood, those ones." The Conductor says. "And they'll not stop until they have it."

"What is this place?"

"This is the Last Train at the Last Station. Overnight express." The Conductor says, then smiles again. "All aboard."

The wolves are creeping in, the Doctor looks at Rose and John, then shrugs. "Well, looks like this is our ride."

"Tickets, please" The Conductor says.

They find themselves holding thin paper slips, which they obediently hand over as they climb the narrow stairs into the car.

The train huffs and jerks into motion, the Doctor turns but the Conductor has vanished.

They work their way down the line of cars, two of them are lined with windows and booth style seats, then a dining car, followed by three sleepers and ending in a luggage car. Like the city, they seem to be the only occupants.

When they come back toward the front, they find that someone has put out dinner, which immediately reminds Rose that she hasn't eaten since last night.

"Do you think it's safe?" She asks, thinking of the first rule of fairy tales: never eat or drink anything from the realm of the little people.

"Mm, I'd imagine so." The Doctor lifts a biscuit and sniffs it. "Bit stale, maybe."

The sandwiches are dry, the tea is weak and tepid, and the biscuits are, indeed, stale. The Doctor wanders off while Rose is picking at the food, walks up toward the front of the train.

She is at the door to the locomotive, trying it with her screwdriver, when the Conductor makes his appearance again.

"Passengers are not allowed in the front of the train." He says with a gentle smile.

"What's up there?" The Doctor asks.

"Please return to the passenger area."

"What if I don't? What are you gonna do, throw me off?"

The Conductor gives her his placid smile again. "Please return to the passenger area."

He reaches past her and opens the door to the engine.

The Doctor finds herself looking into the empty luggage car. She turns to look back at the Conductor, but he has vanished again.

The Doctor steps into the cold, rattling car, which is connected to the last sleeper compartment. The Doctor walks up the isle again, windows one one side showing nothing but snowflakes flashing by in the darkness like stars in space.

She pulls the door to the nearest compartment open again, and looks around. Like the others, this one had been completely empty, but now she sees that something has changed. There is a pair of child's gloves sitting on the small bed to the right, thin things made of fine white cotton with a row of little yellow flowers embroidered around the cuff. The Doctor picks them up and turns them over, inspects them before putting them back the way she had found them.

She searches the rest of the compartment, but finds nothing else. The Doctor steps back out and then into the next compartment, but this one is completely empty and just as it had been before.

The rest of the cars are, likewise, untouched, and several minutes later she steps back into the dining car.

"Didn't you leave the other way?" John Smith asks, arching an eyebrow at her.

"Oroborous." The Doctor makes a circular motion with her hand. "The beginning is the end is the beginning. That Conductor fellow popped up when I started mucking about, though. You haven't seen anybody, have you?"

"No." John shakes his head. "Why?"

"Some little girl left her gloves in the last sleeper." The Doctor says. "Alright, lets check this place again, top to bottom, look for any changes, anything, no matter how small. And I think we'd best stay together, just in case. It might not like us messing around."

They start walking up toward the front of the train. The first public passenger car is empty, though it takes them several minutes to get all the way down the isle as they are checking under all of the seats. Halfway through the second car, though, Rose spots something on one of the seats and walks over to pick it up.

She turns, waving her find. "Somebody lost an umbrella."

The Doctor takes it, looks it over, hands it to John. "Yep, it's an umbrella, alright. Leave it in here, but put it somewhere different."

John hangs it on the luggage rack, where it swings in time with the rocking of the train.

This time, the Conductor does not interrupt her, and the Doctor opens the door to the locomotive, steps aside so Rose and John have an unobstructed view of the dark luggage car. The sound of the engine, which had been loud and nearby, is now muffled, all the way at the other end of the train.

"That's weird." Rose says.

"Kinda." The Doctor agrees, and steps into the car.

Fully engulfed in shadow, looking around all of them immediately see that something has changed, the storage car is no longer empty. There is a large trunk in one corner, the kind that opens out in the middle and has a large strap for carrying it on your back.

The Doctor and John Smith exchange another look, as though the trunk, like the voice, holds some significance for them that Rose is unaware of.

They walk over together, the Doctor and John tug it out away from the wall a bit. Rose can now see that it has latches on the front and hinges on the back, made to swing fully out. It looks like a marionette case.

"What is that?" Rose asks.

""Grandfather, grandfather, old and gray," The Doctor flips the clasps up, pulls the screwdriver out of her pocket to work the lock. "carried a Punch and Judy play-"

The lock clicks, and the case pops open, but contains nothing but a few mothballs.

"But the foxy-man came and stole it away." John murmurs.

A chill seems to come into the already cold air, and Rose wraps her arms around herself. "So, you two know what's going on yet?"

"Sssh-" The Doctor raises a hand, tilts her head.

A child, a little girl, is singing. The sound is faint, but rises clearly above the clattering and creaking of the train.

"Grandfather, grandfather, has a box

keeps it safe with a thousand locks

opens it up when somebody knocks

One, two, three, four,

Penny's knocking at the door

Five, six, seven, eight,

Turn the key and don't be late"

The Doctor starts walking slowly, leading them toward the source of the sound. She pushes the nearest door open but the sleeping booth is empty except for the pair of gloves sitting on the bed.

The next car is empty as well, and when the step out the child has fallen silent.

"We couldn't have heard that from the next car." Rose says.

The Doctor shakes her head. "No, not if this place adhered to normal physics. Well, since we're stuck here, might as well give it what it wants. It's just going to keep poking us until it gets a reaction."

As if on cue, the girl starts to sing again. They can hear now that it's clearly coming from somewhere farther up on the train, though the sound shouldn't be able to carry through.

"Grandfather, grandfather, old and gray

carried a Punch and Judy play

'til the Foxy-man came and stole it away

One, two, three, four

the wolves are on the parlor floor

five, six, seven, eight

close the door and lock the gate."

They open the door to the first compartment, which now appears to be occupied by two people, though neither of them are currently in. A male and a female, and married, given the matching luggage.

"Mom and Dad-" The Doctor says, pulls the next compartment door open. "And the kids."

There are no children in the car, but it's clear that they have been there, and for long enough to get throughly bored. A boy and a girl, judging by the toys and clothes strewn about. On the bed with the boy's coat are several books, most of them are adventure titles which would appeal to someone of around ten, but the one that is open on the blanket is a large and brightly illustrated copy of 'Alice in Wonderland'.

"Aw, isn't that nice. Reading to his sister." The Doctor comments.

The next sleeper has both compartments with luggage in them, suitcases and bags and winter coats. The following car is still empty, but the dining car isn't- there are two men seated next to each other in the last booth, facing them.

They don't look like the sort of people who would own any of the expensive luggage they'd seen, at least not through honest means. One of them is rather tall and quite thin, the other shorter and rounder, both wear scuffed bowler hats and slightly threadbare overcoats and have about them a rather greasy and untrustworthy air.

"Hello." The taller of the two addresses them in a slightly thin, nasal voice.

"Hello." The Doctor says brightly. "I'm the Doctor, these are-"

"We know who you are." He lifts a thin, pale hand, interrupting her. "I'm Mr. Lean, this is Mr. Arrow. We've been expecting you."

"Ah, well, I certainly hope we haven't kept you waiting." The Doctor says. "Now, if you don't mind to terribly much, who exactly are you, and why have you brought us here? And, where is 'here' for that matter?"

Mr. Lean gives her a thin, weaselly smile. "Oh, we aren't the ones responsible. We are just here to, shall we say, negotiate."

"Negotiate what?" The Doctor arches an eyebrow at them.

"Your fee."

"Fee? I'm sorry?" The Doctor looks genuinely puzzled. "You want to...hire me? To do what?"

"To investigate the disappearance of Penelope Charlotte Kelsey," He reaches into his coat and produces a black and white photograph offers it to the Doctor. "daughter of Adrian Kelsey. Vanished in 1895 under mysterious circumstances. The address is on the back."

The Doctor takes it, the image is of a girl of around six years old, hair curled and fixed away from her face. She looks at it for what seems to be a very long time, then hands it over to John and Rose.

"I take it if I agree you'll return my ship."

"That would be a reasonable conclusion."

"What about these two? Why are they here?" The Doctor nods to Rose and John Smith.

Mr Lean flicks his beady black eyes over the pair. "Oh, now, everybody knows the Doctor never works alone."

"I'll need to speak to your employer."

"Of course."

The Doctor twists around to look at Rose and John. "Well, what do you think?"

"I'm game." John says.

Rose nods. "Sure."

"Just like old times." The Doctor winks. "Right then, tell us about this-"

Mr Lean and Mr Arrow have vanished, and the train is suddenly full of sunlight and people. A busboy with a tray edges around Rose, murmuring an apology.

"Ladies and gentlemen-" The Conductor is at the front of the car. "If you'd please collect your bags, we'll be arriving at the station in half an hour. Thank you."

He comes down the isle, the Doctor lifts a hand. "Excuse me-"

"Yes, miss?" He gives her a polite smile.

"Where does this train go?"

"Victoria Station, miss."

"In London?" The Doctor says.

"Yes, miss. Long night, was it?"

"You could say that." The Doctor smiles. "Thank you."

The Conductor walks on, through the door and into the next car.

The Doctor grabs several packets of biscuits from the table and drops them into a pocket. "Come on, I want to have a look around. You two take the front."

The other passengers are standing up, returning to their seats or sleeping compartments. The Doctor slides between the moving bodies and within seconds is lost, Rose and John work their way toward the passenger booths and engine.

The umbrella is still hanging where John had left it.

"Please take your seats." The conductor is coming back up to the front of the train.

"Ah-" John hesitates.

The conductor gives him a slightly suspicious look, and John motions Rose into the seat, hastily plops down beside her.

"Thank you." The conductor says.

"So much for looking around." Rose hisses.

"Yes, I guess we'll have to settle for eavesdropping." John flashes a grin at her.

The Doctor walks with her back pressed against the window side of the car, slipping easily by the other passengers. The two children bound past, followed by their haggard looking parents. The two men who's luggage they'd seen turn out to be brothers in their sixties, eager to chat and happy to inform her that they are headed to their niece's christening.

The last car is still unoccupied. The Doctor checks the small rooms but finds nothing. By the time she has finished snooping around the train has slowed to a rocking crawl, and a few moments later they have pulled under the shadow of Victoria Station.

She finds Rose and John on the platform and waves them over. "It seems that whatever was going on has stopped for the moment."

The Doctor makes a 'come along' motion with her head and starts walking, the other two fall in step on either side.

"So, what do we do now?" Rose asks.

"We investigate." The Doctor says.

"Using what, a name and picture?" Rose looks around.

"A name, a picture, and-" They have reached the area where several strapping young lads are unloading luggage, among the trunks and crates is a large box covered with a heavy sheet, which the Doctor tugs away with a flourish. "A big blue box."

She unlocks the door of the Tardis, pushes it open. The interior is dark, as it always seems to be until you get right up close. John nudges Rose, who walks forward, steps over the threshold and inside. John follows, the Doctor comes behind them and closes the door.

A moment later, the engines engage with their heavy, pumping wail, and the Tardis slips behind a fold in space time and vanishes.


	2. Chapter 2

Rose has an unexpectedly emotional reaction to being in the Tardis again, even though it has changed significantly from the last time she was here. The ship rocks and sways as they move, then settles and drops into idle. She realizes she's tearing up and swipes at her eyes.

"You alright?" The Doctor asks.

Rose nods, manages a smile. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You're dripping on my floor." The Doctor nods at her feet, where the snow is melting into a small puddle.

"Sorry."

"Come on, lets go get changed." John touches her arm and navigates her toward the door at the far end of the console room.

It takes him less time to get out of his clothes, and she loses him when he steps out of the closet and vanishes. Rose finds her way back, but stops in the doorway.

The Doctor is alone, turning dials and flipping switches as the Tardis clicks and hums. "That's...that's odd...where have you been off to?" She raises her voice, addressing Rose. I don't bite, you know. Not unless you ask really nicely."

Rose laughs somewhat sheepishly and steps into the console room. "Sorry, you're just so...different."

"New new Doctor." She flashes Rose a grin and wink.

Rose stumbles forward, throws her arms around the Doctor.

"Oh, hello!" The Doctor laughs.

"Doctor, I-" It's the first time she's actually said the name since they arrived, and whatever she'd intended to come after is lost as her throat closes up.

"Oh, oh, ssh, it's OK." The Doctor tightens her arms around her. "Come on, now, you're going to get me started."

"Now isn't that typical, been here ten minutes and you've already got some girl crying at you." John says from the doorway.

"What can I say, I have a gift." The Doctor says.

"Shut up." Rose leans away. "I was worried about you, you know."

"Me? Why?"

"I dunno, because you're you?"

"Fair enough." The Doctor concedes. "Well, gang, we have a mystery to solve-"

She pulls the exterior door open and bright morning light pours in. They have landed beside a small garden shed, a rather large house stands before them surrounded by a lawn that needs cutting.

The Doctor takes off walking across the lawn, John closes and locks the door behind them.

The grass is wet with dew, and they leave a trail of dark footprints as they approach the house. Lights are shining through several of the windows.

The Doctor knocks, and footsteps can be heard from inside. A very tired looking man opens the door, blinking at them from eyes surrounded by dark circles.

"Can I help you?"

"Adrian Kelsey?" The Doctor flashes the psychic paper at him. "I'm the Doctor, this is John Smith and Rose Tyler."

"Doctor?" Kelsey runs a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, there must have been some sort of mix-up."

"Your child isn't missing?" The Doctor swaps the psychic paper for the photo of the little girl.

"Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry, please come in."

"Alright, why don't you start at the beginning." The Doctor says when they are in the parlor.

Kelsey takes a deep breath. "It began when we moved into this house. My wife had passed away the previous year, a riding accident, and that spring my father died quite suddenly, leaving me a fairly sizable inheritance. A patient of mine in London mentioned this house, some relative of his lives in the town, and I made an inquiry and found the price to be quite fair.

At first, I just thought it was the house settling. We had to do some renovations, and of course in a new place...strange noises. It sounded like something in the walls...not rats or mice, more like...snakes. Huge snakes."

He shakes his head and laughs. "I called a repair man, and he said that I was insane, but he came out and had a look. We didn't find any snakes, but we did find a door in the basement, behind a set of shelves. We pried it open but found it had been bricked over, and as he was charging me by the hour we stopped there.

That night, I heard the sound in the walls again, louder and closer. It sounded as though the thing or things were moving down the hall, towards my daughter's room. I leaped out of bed and ran down the hall, threw her door open and snatched her out of bed, convinced that something had come to take her. The sound stopped, then, and I took her back to my bed.

The next morning, I sent her to spend a few days with her aunt and ventured down into the basement with a sledgehammer, determined to remove the brick wall and see what was hidden behind the door. I smashed through the brick and found a layer of wooden planks, nailed on from the inside. When I broke those free I..." Kelsey hesitates. "I almost don't want to say."

"Please, go on." The Doctor says. "We've all seen our share of strange things."

"None as strange as this." Kelsey says. "When I cleared that door, I swear to you I found myself looking into a city, a city in the winter, it was even snowing. I was so shocked I slammed the door by instinct. When I opened it again a moment later, the wall was there as though it had never been broken.

I know what you must be thinking, that I fell asleep and dreamed it, or had a hallucination. And at first, that's what I believed as well.

I had an emergency patient, who took up most of the day, and I returned home so exhausted that the strange room in the basement was the farthest thing from my mind. The next day, however, I took it upon myself to remove the bricks once more. And once more, I found the city.

This time I left the door ajar, and ran upstairs to call for my friend and partner Dr. Frank Andrews. I didn't dare tell him what I had found, but asked him to come to my home as quickly as he could. When he arrived, I brought him immediately into the basement, but the city had gone again, leaving only the wall.

I was quite agitated, and after some convincing Frank agreed to take up a hammer himself and aid me in the removal of the wall for the third time. We broke away the bricks and boards, but there was no city beyond them.

What we found instead was a room, perhaps ten by twenty feet, which appeared to have at one time been used as a laboratory, a long table ran across the back wall upon which were various test tubes and microscopes. We also found a number of boxes, we searched several of them but found them to contain only more slides, test tubes, and the like.

While we were exploring the room, both of us began to feel a distinct chill in the air. And we noticed as well an odor, a sweet, rotten smell, like fermenting fruit. Shortly thereafter I began to feel light headed, as did he, and the both of us abandoned the room and closed the door.

I did open it again later, and to be honest I half expected to see bricks, but the room was still there."

Adrian Kelsey pauses and looks at the visitors, who have been listening with interest. When none of them question his story, he goes on.

"For a few days, things were quiet. I brought Penny back home, and warned her to avoid the basement, which of course she needed little encouragement to do. My practice began to pick up, and I hired on a full time housekeeper and nanny, Agnes McDuffy. Several days after moving in, she began to complain of headaches, for which I prescribed her a powder. For the next few weeks, Miss McDuffy seemed to have a variety of mild but persistent symptoms, varying from headaches and nausea to tremors and faintness. Throughout this she carried on with her duties, and seemed quite hesitant to seek my aid.

One night, she had been working for me for perhaps six weeks, she came up to my study in a state of high agitation, almost hysterical. I managed to calm her after a time, and asked her what had happened.

She said 'Mice and rats I don't mind, nor ghosts and ghouls, but as God is my witness, I cannot live with the snakes in the walls.'

I knew, of course, as I had heard them myself. But I assured her, as the workman had me, that there was nothing living in the walls.

She left less than a week later, I awoke to find that she had packed her things and ordered a cab late in the night. She works at a hotel now, I believe, I don't know which. I'm sure you have that in your files somewhere.

The Doctor nods. "We can look her up if the need arises. What happened after she left?"

"Well, I couldn't leave Penny at home alone, and I certainly couldn't have her at my practice, she was very young, not quite four years old. For a few days I left her in the care of the sister of my nurse, and though she was happy to watch her the poor woman had ten children between her own and those of family and neighbors, and I couldn't bring myself to add to the burden.

"I hired a young woman by the name of Carlotta, Italian by birth but with excellent English. She had come over to marry some rogue who abandoned her, I believe. She was only with me a short time, one day she fled from the house screaming that it she had seen the devil. I have no idea what became of her.

But the two of them must have talked to their friends quite a bit, because it was two months before I was able to find another nanny."

"What did you do with your daughter during this time?"

"She stayed with her aunt. I devoted myself to my practice, and even took to sleeping on the couch. I said it was because I was tired at the end of the day, but to be perfectly honest I found the thought of staying alone in the house rather daunting.

When I did stay in my own room, I fancied I could hear things moving about in the walls, and footsteps coming up the basement stair, though of course I never found anything. Sometimes the rooms would become cold, and I could smell the same scent as in the basement, like mildewed fruit.

One day it occurred to me that I was being rather ridiculous, avoiding my own house. I hired a few lads from the village and we ventured back down into the basement room, and we removed everything from the interior, throughly cleaned and disinfected the room, then used bricks and plaster to fill in the door.

I had almost given up hope of finding a nanny when I finally had a response to my add, and hired Anne Turner. She was a devout Catholic and insisted on hanging crosses in every room of the house, I normally don't encourage that sort of religious decoration, but I was willing to allow her whatever small comforts she desired.

And Penny absolutely adored her.

She did not seem to be troubled by sounds in the walls, though she did occasionally comment on the sweet, mildewed smell. She believed in the restorative properties of fresh air, and would keep the windows wide open unless it was pouring rain or freezing cold.

It was six months before the first incident. This would have been in early December.

Mrs Turner came to my practice with Penny, very upset. Apparently, passing by the cellar door earlier in the day she had heard what she believed to be some sort of animal, possibly a large rat.

She found the basement very dark, and felt a very cold draft, she described it as the 'breath of the tomb', accompanied by the same sweet, rotten smell, very strong now. She could still hear the thing, whatever it was, thumping and skittering about. She was not faint of heart, and proceeded to fetch a lantern and heavy stick, then walked down the stairs to confront the animal.

When she reached the bottom stair, she found the air so cold that she could see her breath, and the smell almost overpowering.

I'm sorry, I failed to mention- after we walled the doorway up, I had installed a heavy shelf, secured to the brick behind the plaster. This she found shaking violently, as though struck repeatedly from behind.

The lantern went dark, and she felt what she described as the presence of a great evil filling the room. She clutched the cross about her neck and began to recite the rosary.

She could hear the shelves banging against the wall, and from behind them began to pour a phosphorescent steam or mist which filled the room to a height of several feet, and covered the bottom few steps. The shelf came away from the wall and fell to the floor, exposing large cracks in the plaster from which the light and mist were emanating.

At that point she fled, locked the door, grabbed my daughter and came to get me.

She refused to enter the house again unless accompanied by a priest, and by that time I was ready to try anything to resolve this problem. It took a bit of convincing, but eventually Father O'Hara agreed to come along.

I don't know how much of our story he believed, though he did certainly seem concerned at our distress. Mrs Turner kept Penny in the yard, and the Father and I entered the house. Immediately we were assaulted by the sweet, rotting stench. There was a slimy film about the cracks under and around the door.

We took up lanterns and set off down the stairs. We found the inside of the door and the stairs coated with the same thin film, which was slightly tacky and clung to our shoes.

In the basement, we found the shelf toppled over on the floor. The plaster was badly cracked and had fallen away in several places, exposing the brick. A few of those had toppled down as well, and when I shone my lantern through the gap we could see the room beyond.

Father O'Hara recited several passages from the bible, and sprinkled some holy water about. I admit I was half expecting chaos to erupt, but it provoked no response. We lifted the shelf and leaned it against the wall, covering the missing plaster. He left a list of bible verses and prayers we were to say if we were bothered further, and a vial of holy water, and then took his leave.

That night a terrible storm came up seemingly out of nowhere. As the rain and hail pounded on the house and the wind howled we began to hear noise from the basement again. We both went to the basement door, under the crack of which we could see the light and mist she had spoken of.

We began to recite the verses of the bible and anoint the door with holy water. The door began to rattle and bang against its hinges, as though struck by something from behind. This went on for several hours, with the pounding becoming so violent I feared the door would split open or fly free of the frame. But it held, and at last with morning the sky cleared and the sounds ended.

We both immediately rushed upstairs to check on my daughter, who appeared to have slept soundly through the entire affair.

Mrs Turner was, of course, quite distressed and eager to leave the house, and so she roused and dressed Penny and took her out to do some visiting. I fortified myself with a stiff drink and then took up the lantern, stick, and holy water and opened the basement door.

Once again, the smell was almost overpowering. I shined the light around the room and found the basement littered with boxes and toppled shelves. The heavy shelf we had put back against the wall had come down again, and now lay broken on the floor. Many of the bricks had fallen away, exposing the room beyond.

I pulled more of them away, until I was able to see clearly into the room. The rear wall seemed to have been cut cleanly away, exposing a cave or tunnel. From the shadows inside of the opening there came a cold, damp wind, and it was from this that the smell seemed to originate.

As I stood, attempting to decide whether I should venture into the room, I heard something moving around. The thing that came from that tunnel...I don't quite know how to describe it. It was egg-like in shape, standing perhaps to the height of my knee. From the underside protruded a number of tendrils or tentacles, and it was using these to crawl along the floor at a surprisingly quick pace.

I sprung backwards in surprise as it clambered rapidly from the hole into the basement, and before I could react, the thing had scrambled up the stairs and vanished through the door into the house.

I pursued it as quickly as I could, locking the basement door behind me, and searched the house. Eventually I found the body of the creature in the back garden, it seemed to be rapidly decomposing, and within minutes had liquefied and soaked into the ground.

I believed, then, that the incident was over. I did not know what the creature was, and with no evidence of it's body doubted I ever would.

It seemed as though that was the end, with the death of the strange creature the noises and smell vanished. When I went back to the basement, I found to little surprise that the rear wall of the little room was once more solid, with no evidence of the opening I had seen.

Christmas passed without incident, and not long after I had a new, sturdy wall put in place sealing off completely the strange little room."

Kelsey comes to a stop again, looking at his visitors, trying to judge their reactions. They all have expressions of interest and slight puzzlement, but he sees nothing of the disbelief he has become accustomed to.

"When did things start up again?" The Doctor asks.

"It was after the spring thaw. It had been quite wet for several weeks, and rather warm. I was upstairs, moving a trunk of winter clothes into the attic, when I caught the scent again, the sweet rotting smell. I searched the attic but could not find the source.

As the weather became warmer, the smell seemed to come and go. Mrs Turner noticed it as well, and several times we searched the house for it's source.

We were closing the fireplaces one day. I went into the guest room, which had not been used since I purchased the house, and had last been throughly cleaned several months prior. Immediately upon opening the door, I was faced with the sweet, mouldering smell. I was able to follow it to the fireplace, it seemed to be coming down the chimney.

I took up a poker and thrust it as far into the chimney as I was able, but felt nothing out of the ordinary. I fetched some kindling from the box by the hearth and set it alight. The room immediately began to fill with smoke, I doused the flames and threw open the windows.

I fetched a lantern and a chimney brush. I was hesitant to lean under the opening, and first inserted the chimney brush. The brush came in contact with something, and after poking the object and establishing that it did not seem to be reactive, I finally put my head into the fireplace and used the light to look up into the chimney.

I could clearly see that what appeared to be roots or vines had blocked the chimney. My first thought, of course, was to call in a professional cleaner- but though I avoided mention of any of the strange events if at all possible, I was already beginning to lose credibility in the community. I felt that I required some sort of proof, if only to convince myself I had not gone mad, as my only comfort there was that Mrs Turner shared the experiences.

And so the next time Penny went to visit her aunt, I assembled materials- I intended to strip away the wall and remove part of the brick chimney itself. My father, as you know, was a builder by trade as a young man, before his back gave out, and I had often assisted him in construction and felt confident in my ability to safely repair any damage I might inflict. I suggested Mrs Turner vacate the house for the duration of my exploration, but it seems the old girl was in it 'till the end. She did, however, go to the church for more holy water.

I also acquired the original construction plan for my house, and by the time Mrs Turner returned I had laid out the tools we needed, and determined by the papers that the chimney could best be accessed through the closet in the next room.

I removed the closet ceiling, and built a platform several feet above the floor, and then began to pull away the boards and hand them out to Mrs Turner and made quick work of stabilizing the chimney before carefully removing several bricks and clearing a hole though which I could shine a light.

I found the vine like structures ran up the chimney for several feet, and down below they were protruding from an object similar to the egg creature I had witnessed. I prodded the thing and found it leathery and unresponsive. Until, that is, I attempted to cut through one of the vines.

Immediately it began to ooze deep purple liquid, so strong was the horrid sweet rotting smell that I was momentarily overwhelmed and stumbled out of the closet, gagging. The thing in the chimney could be heard then slithering around, soot and bits of broken brick fell down into the fireplace.

I regained my senses and entered the closet again, a handkerchief pressed against my nose and mouth. I found the remains of the vines clinging to the interior of the chimney, but the...creature...had vanished. I charged upward, while Mrs Turner took off down the stairs, clutching a poker about which she wrapped her rosary.

Several moments later I heard a piercing scream, and dashed down the stairs to find her on the floor of the living room, dead. There was not a mark upon her, it seemed her heart had failed. There was a fair amount of soot about the hearth, and tracked over the carpet, though where the thing had gone I could not determine.

I summoned the authorities, who determined as I had that the cause of death was coronary failure. They took her body away, and after a time left me alone. Later that night, I heard a sound, a strange sound from down at the back of the yard. I don't know how to describe it, as bellows perhaps. And thought I saw a flash of light.

I though, then, of moving- of simply abandoning the house. But I could not afford to do so- between the days I had stayed home, and the building dis-trust of my patients, even removing our belongings would be near impossible.

When news broke in town of the death of Mrs Turner, my house became a symbol of bad luck. I had a few loyal patients, but most of them preferred to see my partner. To make matters worse, the townsfolk seemed to believe that Penny herself might bring them ill fortune.

One of my patients ran a school for girls, and agreed to allow Penny to attend, though she was slightly younger than was normally preferred. Penny excelled in her studies and was, by all accounts, a bright and friendly child, who seemed completely unaware of the odd events which surrounded her home.

Five days ago now, I awoke and found Penny missing, the bedclothes were tossed about, and the floor and blankets were streaked with soot. I...I imagined her in the chimney, and terror filled me as I fetched a light, but was quickly able to establish that they were all clear. I...haven't seen or heard from her since."

Kelsey comes to a stop and looks down at his hands, waiting for their reaction. There is what feels like several very long moments of silence, then the Doctor speaks.

"Have you had any disturbances since Penny went missing?"

"No." Kelsey says.

The Doctor nods and stands up. "Thank you, Dr. Kelsey, you've been most informative. I believe I'd like to have a look around, now."

"Yes, of course."

The Doctor looks at John. "Chimneys or basement?"

John groans. "I suppose I have to be a gentleman, don't I. I'll ruin my clothes for you on one condition-" He lifts his hand and makes a motion which most people would associate with a TV remote.

"I can live with that." The Doctor pulls out the sonic screwdriver and tosses it to him. "Break it and you're making me a new one."

"Promise?" John arches an eyebrow.

"Cheeky young thing." The Doctor waves him away. "Why don't you go with him, Dr. Kelsey. Rose, you're with me, unless you object."

"Not a bit." Rose grins.

"Yeah, yeah, abandon me to do the dirty work."

Dr Kelsey looks at the Doctor and Rose again. "I...I know it seems quite impossible, what I'm saying, but-"

"We'll be fine." The Doctor says.

Kelsey glances at John, who nods. "The ladies can take care of themselves."

Kelsey nods. "As you wish. The basement door is on the hall to the left, the key is hanging on the frame. Which fireplace would you like to see first?"

"The one in Penny's room." John says, and he and Kelsey head toward the staircase.

The Doctor and Rose find the basement door locked. The Doctor runs her fingers around the crack between door and frame, rubs them together.

"There's some sort of residue-" She sniffs her fingertips, wipes her hand on her jacket. "Hand me that key, would you?"

She takes it from Rose and inserts it into the lock, keeps a hand on the knob to keep the door closed while she turns it. The mechanism releases with a soft click. They wait a few seconds, and when nothing happens, the Doctor turns the knob and pulls the door open.

The basement is dark, and she pulls a flashlight out of her pocket and shines it down the stairs.

"Tell me, is that something you do to the clothes, or just more Time Lord magic?" Rose leans in and peers over her shoulder.

"Sorry?"

"That stupid pocket trick you're always pulling."

"Pocket dimension." The Doctor says. "And, ah, it just sort of...happens. Well, no, that's not really true, it happens for a reason, but...well, you see, a friend and I had a disagreement about exactly what temperature constitutes 'very hot' and one thing led to another..."

"And this ended with your pockets being bigger on the inside?" Rose arches an eyebrow.

"Um, yes."

"Which one of you was right?"

"That's not important." The Doctor says.

"Ha. In other words, you lost."

"Hmpf. I can be wrong sometimes."

"Really?" Rose widens her eyes.

"I should have sent you up the chimney." The Doctor says.

"I don't think I'd fit." Rose has been watching the light sweep slowly across the room.

The Doctor starts down the stairs, keeping the light primarily on the opening. They find an unbroken storm lantern on one of the cellar shelves, the Doctor flicks a lighter out of her pocket and sets the wick burning.

"Here, you can play Keeper of the Flame." She hands the lantern to Rose.

It is noticeably colder in here, and there is a faint trace of the smell Kelsey had mentioned, like rotten fruit.

The Doctor pulls a pair of sunglasses out of her pocket and puts them on. Rose glances over at her, arches an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"What, you don't think they make me look cool?" The Doctor says absently, she's looking at the newly plastered wall, though Rose doesn't think she could possibly see much. "Hm, I'm definitely picking up some paranormal activity, Ray."

She takes the shades off and hands them to Rose. "Here- look."

Rose shoots her a doubtful expression, then puts them on.

The room seems to get brighter, the bricks of the wall standing out in three dimensions. She can see the shape of the room behind the sealed door. The back wall clears slightly when she focuses on it, the lines becoming sharper, there is a rough circular shape that seems to shimmer slightly.

"What's that line?" Rose hands the glasses back to the Doctor, who pockets them again.

"Residue, I'd imagine from the mist he was speaking of. It's dissipated everywhere else, but here, when the wall formed again, a layer was trapped and preserved. Whatever it is, though, it's long gone."

She raps on the wall with her knuckles. "Hm, I don't particularly feel like tearing down walls right now, I think we'll come back with the Tardis to have a look. But you know what I'm really curious about-" The Doctor motions for Rose to follow and heads back towards the stairs. "Kelsey obviously wasn't expecting us, so who went to all this trouble? And what are they really after? A father in search of his child is one thing, but some third party has decided to intervene here."

She closes and locks the basement door, and within a few minutes they have found John Smith and Dr. Kelsey.

"Oh my." Rose lifts a hand to her mouth and laughs at her soot-smeared husband.

"Shake my hand, I could do with a bit of luck." The Doctor says.

"Yeah, laugh it up." John rubs at his face, inadvertently removing the one remaining clean spot.

"Find anything?"

"Traces of some unknown substance around the fireplace in Penny's room, and there's definitely been something crawling around in the chimneys but if it's still here, I can't find it."

"Yes, that's the conclusion we reached as well."

"So, what do you think?" Kelsey asks.

"I think something very strange is going on around here, and we're going to get to the bottom of it." The Doctor says. "Alright, we need to go have a look at a few other things."

Kelsy nods slowly. "Penny, is she...do you have any idea what happened to her?"

"Not yet." The Doctor says. "But if it's possible to find her, we will."

Kelsey walks them to the door, is slightly surprised to see them walk around behind the house. He thinks they must be inspecting the yard, but then there is a strange noise, a mechanical straining and pumping sound, like some sort of forced bellows. He bolts out into the yard and around to look, but the back garden is completely empty. The Doctor and her companions have vanished into thin air.


	3. Chapter 3

The Tardis materializes in a side street down the hill, the highest peak of Kelsey's house just visible over the rooftops.

"Alright, we need to find out more about this whole situation-" The Doctor says. "John, why don't you talk to Kelsey's partner and the police, see what they have to say about him. Rose, if you can find Agnes MacDuffy and talk to her, I want to see this school for girls."

Mrs Donovan's School for Girls is an appropriately pointed and dark building, though it has been made somewhat less severe by the addition of brightly colored pinwheels planted in the front yard. A group of small humans are frolicking around on the short grass.

As the Doctor approaches, several of them circle up and begin to dance, accompanying the movements with a singsong chant. "Grandfather, grandfather, has a box..."

The Doctor watches them for a moment, then walks past the children and through the door. The lower floor has been renovated, creating two large rooms, a walled staircase forming the barrier between them. One of the rooms has desks in neat rows, the other appears to be used for art and music study.

"Can I help you?" A gray haired woman in a conservative dress.

"Bridgette Donovan? I'm the Doctor, here with Scotland Yard-" She flips out the psychic paper. "I have some questions about Penelope Kelsey."

"Yes, of course. The girls have exercise for the next ten minutes, if that will be long enough."

The Doctor smiles. "I'm sure that will be fine. Tell me about her. How did she come to be at your school?"

"After Mrs Turner died, Dr. Kelsey couldn't find anyone to take care of her. I agreed to allow her at the school"

"She's younger than your other students." The Doctor comments.

"Yes, a little over six."

"Did you ever have any problems?"

"Not particularly, no. She was very bright, quite intelligent. I regularly assigned her work that I'd normally reserve for the older girls. Very good vocabulary."

"They didn't bother her about the house?" The Doctor asks. "I heard it had a reputation for being haunted."

"The old Wainthrop place? Oh, that's been flying around for years."

"Did you know him? Mr Wainthrop?"

"Oh, yes, I used to visit him as a child. He used to be a doctor, you know."

"Really, I hadn't heard that."

"This was years and years ago."

"You were one of Kelsey's patients, weren't you?" The Doctor asks.

"Yes."

"And what was your experience with him?"

"I think he's brilliant. Cleared my chest right up." She pats her collarbone. "He's modern."

"I see." The Doctor nods. "Did you ever notice anything unusual about his practice?"

"No, not really."

"What about his partner?"

"Dr. Andrews? He's alright, but...well, he's just a bit old fashioned."

"Mm." The Doctor nods, looks around the room for a moment before turning her eyes back to the

woman. "What do you think happened?"

"To Penny? I don't know." Mrs Donovan shakes her head.

"Oh, come on, you must have an opinion." The Doctor smiles.

Mrs Donovan looks uncomfortable. "Well..."

"It's alright, whatever it is. Strictly off the record." The Doctor makes an 'I swear' motion with her hand.

"I got the feeling he was in trouble, wherever he came from. Mixed up with the wrong people. That's why he came here."

"What makes you say that?"

"There were these men..." Mrs Donovan says. "Two of them, I saw them outside perhaps half a dozen times over the course of two months. Sort of thin, a bit...shabby...I can't say why, but I found them unsettling."

"What were they doing?"

"Nothing suspicious." Mrs Donovan says. "Just out walking, for the most part. Only one day, this was not long before Penny went missing, I saw her talking to them. She wasn't the type to talk to strangers, but she went right up to the fence when they came by."

"She knew them." The Doctor says.

"That's the impression I had." Mrs Donovan says.

"What were they talking about?" The Doctor asks.

"I have no idea."

"Mrs Donovan?" An older girl pokes her head in. "It's time for art."

"Alright, thank you, Sara. Can you help Elsie with her paints?"

"Yes, miss." Sara says.

"Did she draw? Penny?" The Doctor asks.

"Oh, yes." Mrs Donovan says.

"Do you have anything she's done?"

"Back here-" Mrs Donovan leads her to the back wall of the art room, where students' work is hanging. "Here's one of hers-"

A red barn on a green field dotted with little round sheep, a yellow sun shining from the blue sky.

"Here- these are the others." Mrs Donovan hands her a stack of heavy paper, some of it slightly warped from water paints.

The Doctor moves into the other room to look through the pictures while Mrs Donovan's students come in and sit down, assembling their various art supplies. Most of the drawings are almost suspiciously generic- houses, pastures, and woods presented with wobbling, uneven lines and blobby colour.

 _They don't look like a child drew them,_ the Doctor thinks. _They look the way grown-ups think children draw…_

She is almost on the bottom of the stack when she stops, staring at one of the papers. Mrs Donovan can be heard approaching, and she quickly folds the drawing and puts it in her pocket.

"Thank you." She hands the rest of the papers back. "I'll get out of your way, now."

….

"Here we go, Dr Adrian Kelsey." Constable Abrams hands a file over to the investigator from Scotland Yard.

"Thank you." John Smith opens the folder and flicks through. "What do you know of him before he came here?"

"Not much, sir. Why, do you think he's dangerous?"

"We don't have any evidence to that end." John says. "Did you investigate the death of this Mrs Turner?"

"Heart attack, sir." Abrams says.

"Did you perform a postmortem?"

"Seemed pretty straightforward, sir."

"Mm." John says.

"You think there was foul play, sir?"

"That's what we're here to find out." John says. "Where was she buried?"

"Ah..." The constable hesitates. "Well, sir, you see..." He looks around, takes a deep breath. "The body went missing, sir."

"Went missing?" John says.

"Yes, sir. Mix up with the funeral home, sir. Still trying to work it out."

"I see." John nods. "Can I borrow this, do you think? I'll bring it back."

"Of course, sir, I'll make out a receipt." The constable pulls out his pad, begins to write then stops. "Say, is it true, sir? That you have a lady doctor with you?"

"Yes, that's right." John opens the folder and casually flips through the contents.

"To examine Dr Kelsey?"

"No. She's the lead investigator, I am but a humble assistant."

"Oh." A pause. "Is she any good?"

"Best in the world." John takes the receipt, flashes the young man a grin before vanishing through the door.

...

The hotel where Agnes MacDuffy works has a 'help wanted' sign on the door. Rose has to make a few beds before she finally runs into Agnes, and strikes up a conversation while they are sorting clean sheets.

Rose works around to saying she'd come into town looking for a job as a nanny, but been told that one was no longer needed, and voices her disappointment.

Agnes goes pale. "Up at that doctor's place?"

"Yeah." Rose says. "What? You've gone all white."

"That place is evil." Agnes said.

"Evil?" Rose says. "Oh, come on, you don't believe in that sort of thing, do you?"

"Normally, no." Agnes says. "But that house...and that man...there's something not right. Did he tell you why he doesn't need a nanny? His girl vanished. Or, he says she did. But..." She lowers her voice. "He's in league with the devil. He sacrificed her. And poor Mrs Turner. And his wife, before. That house...you can hear things in the walls."

"What, like rats?"

"Like snakes. Huge snakes. He says there's nothing there, but I knew he could hear them. And the basement...that's where he does it. Summons demons."

Rose laughs. "Oh, come on."

"It's true." Agnes says.

"Did you ever see these demons?" Rose asks.

"No." Agnes admits. "But...once I saw a light under the basement door."

Rose gives her a doubtful look. "Is that all?"

"There was another girl, worked there. She was foreign." Agnes says. "She saw the devil there. Ran off then, before he could get her. And poor Mrs. Turner, she didn't get away. She worked there for longer than anybody else, though. In the end, he took her soul. Said it was a heart attack, but everybody knows. Black magic, that's what got her."

"What about his child?" Rose asks.

"She's...was...well...quiet and well behaved but...sometimes late at night, he would go up to her room and I'd hear them talking...and other times, when they thought I couldn't hear...and the way she spoke...it was as though she was older. And not just a little older. Sometimes she sounded like she was giving him orders. And...and she had this song, she got the girls at that school doing it, too. Like a game, you know, but I'd never heard it before and it was...well, you know those things are sometimes rather, morbid, I suppose you'd say, but this one...it was about an old man, and things kept happening to him. Horrible things, he got all his things stolen, gets attacked by wolves and burns up in a fireplace and...there's something about a Chinaman and rats and..." Agnes sighs. "I don't know. It doesn't sound like anything when I say it, but.."

A thin woman pokes her head down the stairs and calls Agnes up, when the door has closed and Rose is sure they've walked away she slips out the back.

She's been walking for several blocks when someone grabs her arm from behind. Rose jumps, but it turns out to be the Doctor.

" 'Ello, love, going my way?"

"As a matter of fact, I am." Rose laughs, linking elbows with the Doctor. They have been walking for a minute or two when she can't stand it any longer. "OK, spill it."

"Pardon?"

"That stupid creepy poem. It's about you, innit."

"So, Agnes knows it, then." The Doctor says. "So do the girls at the school. They have a game that goes along with it-"

"Answer the question!" Rose says.

"What?"

"Is it about you?" Rose enunciates clearly.

The Doctor makes a series of sounds and gestures which completely fail to clarify the situation.

"I'm going to get a straight answer out of one of you." Rose says.

"Oh, are you." The Doctor arches an eyebrow.

"Yes." Rose says firmly.

"And how do you propose to do that?"

"I have my ways." Rose says.

"Oh, see, now that's incentive in the completely opposite direction." The Doctor smirks. "Ok, ok- look, it's not really as exciting as you're making out. It's from a book of obscure nursery rhymes I picked up a long time ago. I'll have to check when we get back to the Tardis, but I'm pretty sure that it was authored by the school teacher up there." She jerks her head.

"Oh." Rose says, sounding slightly disappointed.

"Yeah, that one stuck in my head." The Doctor taps her temple.

"Is that really all?" Rose pushes.

The Doctor shrugs. "As far as I'm aware, yes."

They have reached the Tardis, and the Doctor unlocks and opens the door, motions Rose through.

...

"Dr. Frank Andrews?" John Smith flashes the paper that identifies him as an investigator.

"Yes?" Dr. Andrews says.

"Do you have a few minutes? I'd like to ask you about Adrian Kelsey."

"Of course. My next appointment isn't urgent, he can wait for a little while. What would you like to know?"

"How did he come to be working here?"

"Moved, after his wife died. Well, his parents, I suppose, had an inheritance." Dr. Andrews said. "He came highly recommended."

"And how was he?"

"Oh, well, I disagreed with some of his methods- he liked to use new methods, chemical and equipment. But his patients seemed to like him, for the most part. Until all this nonsense about the house."

"About that- I understand he purchased the house from you."

"Yes."

"Did you ever live there?"

"I did, for three years."

"Did you ever notice anything unusual?"

"Certainly not."Dr Andrews shakes his head. "It seemed to be a perfectly ordinary house."

"You went back with him, didn't you? After he claimed something happened in the basement."

"Yes. That would have been...it was September 8th, I remember. He hadn't been living here very long. He'd mentioned odd things about the house, but nothing like when he came here with that story about the city." Andrews shakes his head.

"What happened on that day?" John asks.

"He came in, very agitated. I didn't know what to make of it, he's normally quite calm and composed. I thought he must have fallen asleep and dreamed it. But he was very insistent I accompany him. There was certainly no city. There was a door that had been closed over, we tore it open again but there was nothing but a small room. It was quite wet, though."

"Do you know what the room was used for? Why someone would have closed it?"

"It looked like it had once been a laboratory, there were a few boxes of equipment, not much. It was all quite old, I'd imagine it belonged to the vet that used to live there. I have no idea why they walled it up."

"You knew the previous owner?" John asks.

"Dr Wainthrop, he used to work on our horses, and the dogs a few times. He became very withdrawn toward the end of his life, there were rumors that he was doing some sort of experiments in the barn that used to be behind the house- he passed away in the fire. That was around ten years ago."

"What about Mrs Turner?"

"She was a good woman, bless her soul." Dr. Andrews says. "She moved here to take the position. No family that I know of."

"Are you aware of the circumstances surrounding her death?"

"Heart attack" Dr. Andrews says.

"You performed a postmortem?"

"Only a cursory examination. I saw no reason to go farther." Dr Andrews says.

"Are you aware that her remains have gone missing?"

"I hadn't heard that, but it's not surprising. Bodies have a habit of vanishing around here."

"Really? How long has this been happening?"

"Oh, since I was a boy, at least. Not very often, one or two a year at the most. Sometimes more. As far as I know, they were never found. You'd have to ask the constabulary about that."

"How well did you know Penny?"

"I saw her maybe a dozen times."

"What was she like?"

"Quiet." Dr Andrews laughs. "Most children who come in here are crying. She's bright, very well behaved. Was. Do you know what happened to her?"

"Not yet." John says. "Do you mind if I have a look around?"

"Yes, of course." Dr. Andrews fishes a key from drawer and offers it over.

John unlocks the door and steps into the other side of the building, which has an empty front office and an examination and treatment room, and a storage closet. He rattles the desk drawers but finds them locked, drops down and runs a hand along the bottom of the desk.

His pocket vibrates, John reaches in with his free hand and pulls out a clamshell style cell phone, flips it open. "Yeah...ooh...found it."

"Where are you?" The Doctor asks.

John traps the phone between ear and shoulder as he works the key into the lock on the main drawer. "Kelsey's office."

"Mrs Donovan, the teacher, she says she saw a couple men that fit Lean and Arrows description talking to Penny. Did his partner mention anything like that?"

"No." John says. "I can ask him, though."

"You do that. And hurry up, I've got something to show you."

…

John finds the console room empty, but he can hear laughter coming from the kitchen. Laughter that suspiciously stops the second he walks in.

"Hi." Rose says in her innocent voice.

The Doctor glances over at him, bites her lip and turns away with a muffled snort. "Here-" She manages after a moment. "Have some tea-"

This makes both of them stifle giggles again.

"Oh, I see. So that's how it's going to be." John tosses the folder from Abrams onto the table.

"Come on, you know we love you." The Doctor grabs his arm as John walks past, gives it a squeeze.

"Yeah, yeah." He hugs Rose before sitting down and taking the cup she offers him.

"You remember that book- the one with the Grandfather poem in it?"

"Yes." John says.

"Do you have any idea where it might have gotten off to?"

"If it's not in the Library?" John frowns. "You know...ooh, you know where I bet it was- when the Tardis dropped so much mass and lost all those rooms-"

The Doctor groans. "I was really hoping you weren't going to say that."

"Books aside- I was looking through Kelsey's file, and these numbers don't add up." John says.

"What numbers?" The Doctor straightens up.

"According to Kelsey, his wife died the year before he moved here, right?"

"Yes."

"These records say that he purchased the house in 1876- nine years before Penny went missing. If his wife died the year before, Penny would have to be at least ten."

"Maybe she has some sort of medical problem." Rose says.

"That would be fantastic." The Doctor says. "But I rather doubt it. Seems like the sort of thing he'd mention."

"Fine, she's a brain sucking alien who's trying to take over the world, and has enslaved Kesley to help her. Is that better?"

The Doctor has been arranging her face into a sarcastic expression, but now stops and tilts her head. "You know..."

"Oh, come on." Rose groans.

"No, no, that was a bit...B-movie. But that girl did say it sounded like she was giving him orders."

"Yeah." Rose admits."But, a kid?"

"What if she only looks like a child?" The Doctor says. "And what about this-"

She produces the paper, unfolds it with a flourish and spreads it flat on the table. John and Rose lean over to look.

A child's drawing, a castle with a leaning tower, sitting atop a hill covered with green triangular trees. The ground has been cut away, exposing a tunnel leading from the castle to a cave beneath. Inside the cave, a bright blue and white rectangle cut with a cross, a yellow blotch sitting on it's slightly uneven top.


	4. Chapter 4

John Smith is wandering through the Tardis, ostensibly looking for the Doctor, but not trying as hard as he could be to find her. Rose is asleep in her room, which the Doctor had unlocked before walking away, muttering. He has already checked the console room and the small grotto, now he opens the door into the library and moves slowly down the isles. Halfway through the room he can hear shuffling pages and turns, following rows of uneven shelves. He finds the Doctor sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, a pile of books on her lap.

"Doing some light reading?" John drops down beside her and picks one up. " _For the Love of the Dead- The Secret and Mystery of MogDoth_. Really?"

"I know, I know. But listen to this-" The Doctor opens the book she's holding and finds her place again. "Ah, here we are...'found a number of clay artifacts which appeared to be infant burial vessels, however upon closer examination were revealed to be a species related to...blah blah...posses a soft body with a pliable shell which can be hardened to weather adverse conditions….tentacles or tendrils by which they can crawl or climb, some species at a rate of several feet per hour...many species are known for their distinct odor, which is described as rotting or mildewed fruit…' that sounds like the thing Kelsey described, I'd imagine the atmosphere on Earth would let it move quite a bit faster. And they're known for their fondness of areas where there are high carbon deposits- coal mines, post-fire zones-"

"Chimneys." John says.

"Indeed. They'll put on a display when threatened, but they aren't terribly aggressive, not much in the way of defense. Some of them excrete a mildly psychoactive substance." She tosses the book aside with a sigh.

"Maybe someone is running an experiment and it got out of hand." John says. "Things go bad, last resort is always call the Doctor."

"Mm, could be." The Doctor sighs.

She shoves at his knees, scoots back to lean against his chest and props her feet on the opposite shelf.

John tightens his arms around her ribs, lowers his head and speaks in a stage whisper "Hey-"

"What?" She whispers back.

"I can feel your hearts."

"I know. Here- look at this-" She pulls a paper out of her pocket. "Telegraph from Scotland Yard, I asked about Kelesy's wife."

"And?' John tries to see, but the Doctor is intentionally holding it at just the wrong angle.

"And...she doesn't exist!" The Doctor finally flips the telegraph up for him to look at. "Adrian Kelsey never married. According to this, he popped up a few years before he moved here, started up a practice claiming to have graduated from an acclaimed medical school 'overseas'. Penny seems to have appeared between the time he left his old practice and arrived here."

"Could be using an assumed name." John says. "Why did he leave?"

"It's a mystery. Packed up one night and vanished, had patients showing up the next day waiting around. No indication of foul play, though, so they didn't do much in the way of investigating."

The Doctor pulls the photo out of her pocket and holds it up again. "I found out something very interesting when I was scanning this earlier."

"What's that?" John smiles, willingly playing along with her prompting.

"It's not from the 1890s."

"No?" John takes the photo again, looks it over carefully.

"Guess." The Doctor says.

John shakes his head. "Ursa Minor?"

The Doctor laughs. "I wish. No, this came straight out of New Shanghai."

"Really." John whistles. "Now that's impressive. Somebody dropped a pretty penny on it, I'd bet. Ow! Oh, come on, that was a good one."

"Yeah, yeah, you're so clever. But you're right, this wasn't cheap. Here-" She fishes the sunglasses out of her pocket and hands them over. "The fibers are nanotagged."

"These are nice." John comments. "Oh, yes, I see. 2781-5537...hang on, that's the matcom maintenance prefix, isn't it?"

The Doctor laughs. "Never forget an important number. Yes, it is. Which means this was illegally manufactured. And I found traces of Fromolayze embedded in the surface, which was used to coat power generating pavement until all those people got poisoned."

"They were near to a construction site." John says.

"Mm-hm. Now, the photo paper has been compiled, but it was processed with chemical agents- this is a very, very high quality fake. And no way it's a one-off, somebody is doing this a lot. There's skill involved here."

"So somebody is taking deliveries." John says.

"And from a company with a no-questions-asked policy, which means we're talking about a private courtier service located in a seedy part of town- the closer to an underground entrance the better, since they wouldn't want to risk damaging the shipment sending it farther than they have to."

"If I wanted to make sure my volatile chemicals arrived in one piece, I'd look for a service that would pick them up directly, instead of at a central location." John comments.

"So would I- and as it so happens, there is one courier service which meets all of those criteria and was in service when that maintenance code was being used to pirate materials- 2155 to 2157. And from September 5-8 2156, the street three blocks away from them, just one intersection away from an underground entrance, was under construction. Whoever made this probably cleans regularly, so this photo was most likely made during or very shortly after that period. Those chemicals last forever, and the couriers have a pretty high turnover rate so it might not get us anywhere, but I think it's worth a try."

...

Rose blinks awake to someone shaking her foot. For a moment she is confused by the sound and room, then remembers where they are. John is sitting at the bottom of the bed, looking very much like her Doctor in a snug fit suit.

"Did we move earlier? Where are we?" Rose yawns.

"New Shanghai." John says.

" 'kay. Why?"

"I'll explain later. Get dressed. And grab something to eat, we're going Underground and the food is...well, not good."

Rose laughs. "Wow, that has to be pretty bad. Not even rats?"

"You'd be very, very lucky to get insects."

"Eew." Rose wrinkles her nose.

"There are plenty of rats about, though." John says in an encouraging voice.

Rose sighs. "You want me to ask why people aren't eating them, don't you."

"Yes."

"Why don't people eat the rats."

"Because they're toxic." John grins. "Turns out the sealant they use on the streets binds with a commonly used rat poison, makes it harmless to the rat but lethal to humans in a very small dose. One good sized rat could kill three or four adults."

"Great." Rose says.

They find the Doctor waiting just outside of the open door. They have materialized in an alley, it's been raining recently and the wet pavement glitters with reflected neon. The air is heavy, thick with water and greasy smoke.

The courier service is around the corner, a low bio-cement building almost completely covered with graffiti. A chipping door opens into a small office, where a young man with violently purple hair is sitting at the desk with his feet propped up, poking at a computer terminal.

"Dropping off or picking up?" He asks without looking up.

"Neither." The Doctor says.

The attendant looks up, runs a slightly suspicious eye over them. "What do you want?"

"I'm looking for information about a possible client of yours."

"All delivery information is strictly confidential." The young man turns his attention back to the screen.

"Yes, I thought you might say that." The Doctor says. "Which is why I brought this-"

She offers out a thin slip of what looks like plastic, with words printed on it. The attendant takes it looks it over, then sticks the end into a scanner and presses a few buttons.

"UNIT special agents, huh." He peers at a display that has come up on his monitor. "Wow, that's a long list of chemicals, hang on, this is gonna take a minute. Do you know when it was made?"

"No." The Doctor says. "But it was probably picked up and delivered directly from the source."

"OK, well that should narrow it down a little bit. What's this stuff used for, anyway?"

"Processing film." The Doctor says. "Replica photographs. Thank you for your cooperation."

"Hey, Unit doesn't mess with us, we don't mess with you. We ain't doin' no funny business around here. Why are you after somebody doing photos, though?"

"We believe that whoever is making them may be involved in the disappearance of a child." The Doctor says, pulling the photo out of her pocket. "You haven't seen her around, have you?"

"Ooh." He sucks air through his teeth as he looks at the picture. "That's no good. No, no, haven't seen her." He hands the photo back. "Um...Alright, I have two shipments in the last twelve months- Killborne Chemical Stock to...oh, oh wait, I remember this. They requested the same courier the second time...um...yeah, here we go...and we have...special delivery instructions written on package. Hang on a minute." He pulls a headset on, types in several codes. "Skye? Hey, yeah, what's your ETA? Can you make it ten? No, just need to talk to you about something."

He pulls the microphone away. "She'll be here in a little bit, just dropped a package off."

Skye turns out to be a girl of about 15, who rolls through the door on wheeled boots and grabs the corner of the desk, skating back and forth in place as she looks at the group.

"These guys are looking for a missing kid. You remember those packages you got from Killbourne the other month? The ones with the special delivery note?"

"Yeah." Skye says.

"Where did you take them?"

"Fifty-Seven Corner Stop." She replies immediately. "Dunno who picked it up after that."

"Who would know something like that?" The Doctor asks, offering her the photo.

"Carbon Fisher, maybe. He finds stuff." Skye looks at the picture, shakes her head and hands it back. "Haven't seen her, sorry."

"Can you take us to him?"

Skye shrugs. "Yeah, sure, but you're probably wasting your time."

"We have all the time in the world." The Doctor says.

Skye arches an eyebrow at her, then shrugs. "Whatever. I better get paid for this."

"I'm sure we can work something out." The Doctor says.

Skye groans. "Yeah, right."

She retracts the wheels on her shoes, offers out a hand. "'Name's Skye."

The Doctor makes introductions, and the three fall in step behind the girl as she heads back out onto the street. They cut through several alleys, then come to a wide opening that looks as though it was once the entrance to a driving tunnel. There are a few people slouching around, smoking and watching the scant few pedestrians with mildly suspicious looks.

The wide tunnel is lined with makeshift stalls, where a group of rather shady vendors are hawking Name Brand Merchandise at Low, Low Prices. They come to an intersection, begin making turns past progressively more permanent looking structures.

"What was here before?" Rose asks.

"Right here?" John says. "Underground rail. This is a city on a city on a city- the substructure goes down ten, twelve stories in some places. Old temples, catacombs, basements, some of it into natural caves and tunnels, who knows, could go down miles."

Skye stops at a corner, knocks at what looks like an old maintenance door. After a moment it is opened by a man wearing a set of VR goggles, which he pushes up on his head to peer at them.

"Help you?" He asks.

"Hey, Fisher. These guys wanna talk to you." Skye nods her head in their direction.

Fisher gives them a wary eye. "You cops?"

The Doctor flashes her psychic paper.

"Unit, huh. Alright, come in." Fisher opens the door all the way.

The walls in the room are lined with shelves, crammed with mixture of antique electronics and scientific equipment. A door in the back is covered with a faded, flower print blanket.

"What can I do for you?" Fisher asks.

"We're looking for the person who made this-" The Doctor pulls the photo out.

"May I?" Fisher takes the picture and looks it over carefully. "Hm, come with me."

He pushes the blanket aside and ushers them through into the room behind, which is narrow and crowded with metal shelves holding distinctly newer looking stock. Down a short flight of stairs and through another blanketed door, they come into a room which is cooler and brightly lit, air from a forced ventilation system rustles papers sitting on several desks and pinned to boards on one wall. The room is lined with work tables and shelves, some of which hold very complicated looking equipment.

Fisher puts the photo into a slot on the front of a white metallic box, presses a few buttons on it's surface. After a few seconds a display screen comes on, numbers and codes scrolling down in neat rows.

"Hmm...high quality printing...cheap matcom paper, though, won't last more than a few months. Hang on...there's a serial number here..." He pulls the goggles down, his head jerking slightly as he navigates through something only he can see. "Here we go...this was taken with a...RetroBox22k...September 7, 2156."

"It's a new photo?" Rose says. "Not a reprint?"

"Yeah." Fisher says.

"Can you tell us who made it?" The Doctor asks.

"Plum Pudding." Fisher pulls the photo out and hands it back. "She's the only one down here who does this legacy stuff."

"Where can we find her?"

"Up and to the left, pink stall." Fisher says.

"Thank you. We appreciate your cooperation." The Doctor says.

"Can I ask you something?" Fisher says.

"Hm?" The Doctor turns back to look at him.

"Were you involved in the investigation at the Grand High Museum awhile back?"

The Doctor shakes her head. "Why?"

"Nothing." Fisher turns back to his machines. "Just curious."

Plum Pudding turns out to be about three feet tall and three hundred years old, a tiny wrinkled creature in a neon pink mumu and fluffy slippers. She takes the photo with one shriveled hand, peers at it through thick glasses.

"Yes, yes, I remember this. Very unusual." She shuffles to the back of the stall and pulls aside a curtain, motions them through. They step into a small studio crammed with lights and furniture, a corner cleared and set up with curtains and reflectors.

"She came in dressed like that-" She grunts as she shoves a stool over to pull open the top drawer of a filing cabinet. "With two men, very strange. Very strange men."

Plum Pudding finds what she's looking for and pulls a folder out.

"Very specific with what she wanted- did all the talking, she did. Reproduction Cabinet style photograph, developed in the darkroom- cheap paper, though. Cheap matcom paper.΅ She shakes her head. "Told her it wouldn't last. Left all the numbers on, too...wouldn't let me strip them. Was wondering if someone would come looking."

"These men, and the woman, I don't suppose you have a photo." The Doctor says.

Plum Pudding makes a face. "Yes and no-"

She clambers over to a monitor setup and fusses for a few seconds, leans to the side so they can see. A security camera feed of the front and back rooms. Penny appears, stepping through the door flanked by two men who look very much like Lean and Arrow, though their faces seem curiously blurred. Penny looks directly up into the camera for a second, her face pale and blank.

The Doctor's eyes widen for a moment as she is hit with a pulse of recognition,

The Doctor shakes her head slowly, a smile pulling up the corners of her mouth. "Oh, look at that. Bet it's giving you a spot of trouble, innit?"

Then both sets of video abruptly cut to lines of static.

"It stayed like that until they left." Plum Puddings says.

"Signal blocker." The Doctor says. "What about the woman?"

Plum Pudding works the controls for a moment, switching the camera feeds and running them back. "There...just for a second you can see her."

The Doctor leans forward, looking at the image. There is something vaguely familiar about the profile, but she can't quite place it.

"Why are you after her?" Plum Pudding asks.

"She was reported as missing." The Doctor says distractedly.

"Custody battle?"

"What makes you say that?" The Doctor asks.

"Oh, she just seemed to know the men she was with." Plum Pudding says. "Girls that young, with strangers, even if they pretend you can tell they don't want to be there. People come in sometimes, wanting...photos...normal ones, even, but..." She shakes her head. "I don't do that sort of thing. Even rats have scruples. Send them away to the Tiger. But this one, she ordered them around, you know the way bossy kids will."

"How did they take that?" The Doctor asks.

Plum Pudding laughs. "They'd give eachother looks, roll their eyes a bit."

"Can you give me a copy of these videos?" The Doctor asks.

"Here- take the original. And all the negatives and test prints. Whatever is going on, I am officially no longer involved. I'm not going to get killed over this, am I?"

"I doubt it." The Doctor says.

They come back out into the main tunnel, the Doctor shoves her hands into her pockets and does a little bouncy dance.

"Come on, spill it. You know who she is." John says.

"I know _what_ she is." The Doctor says.

"Hey, there she is." Fisher jerks his head.

"Who?" Hal asks.

"The girl I was telling you about!" He jams his elbow into her side. "Look!"

Hal lifts her eyes from the control board she has been assembling and looks through the open door. It takes her a second to figure out who he's talking about, then she spots the group, two blond girls and a man in a suit.

"She's cute." Hal says. "You should go talk to her."

"I already talked to her." Fisher rolls his eyes. "Oh, no- she saw me-"

"Mr Fisher!" The Doctor has motioned her companions to stay behind and poked her head in.

"Hi." Fisher says, his friend laughs.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Um, yeah, sure." Fisher straightens up. "Come into the back."

"You seem like a man who knows things." The Doctor says.

"Sometimes." Fisher says.

The Doctor smiles. "Have you heard anything about...this is going to sound rather insane...but something that looks like an egg or large mushroom with...tentacles...anywhere, have you?"

Fisher goes the kind of quiet that always means something. "Funny you should mention that."

"That's a 'yes', then." The Doctor says.

"Yeah. I've seen them." Fisher says. "Down in the end tunnels. Some of the kids have, too. Nobody goes in there anymore."

"Really." The Doctor's eyes light up. "Would you mind to terribly coming along with me?"

"Am I in trouble?" Fisher asks.

"I think that as long as those things are here, everybody is in trouble." The Doctor says.

They find Rose and John standing in the small front room, chatting with Hal.

"I'm gonna go with them for a minute." Fisher says.

Hal flashes him a grin and nods. Fisher rolls his eyes. Rose gives the Doctor a look and smirks at her.

The Doctor shakes her head. "I don't even want to know. Come on, then."

Fisher leads them down a side tunnel, the lights quickly go out and he pulls a flashlight out, aims it ahead of them. They have gone several hundred yards when the beam picks out several round shapes clinging to the wall.

"Are there more of them?" The Doctor asks.

"I don't know." Fisher says.

The things shudder, reacting to their presence. One of them lifts itself from the wall and begins to slide along on it's tentacle legs.

"Woah. They never did that before." Fisher takes several quick steps back.

A cold wind hits their back.

"No-" The Doctor shouts- "No, no no no nooo- son of a-"

There is a blast of cold air, a shadow that swoops past with a whirl of snow and ice. For a moment, the city seems to flicker around them, then vanishes, leaving Rose and John standing alone in the empty tunnel.

"What just happened?" Rose asks.

"It took them." John says.

"Why didn't it want us?" Rose asks.

"I dunno." John puts a hand on her arm, guides her gently back the way they had come. "But I suggest we don't stick around."

The egg creatures are moving toward them again, their motions distinctly aggressive.

"Come on." John grabs Rose's hand and tugs her into a run.

The tunnel is dim, they follow the low glimmer of light until reaching an intersection filed with light and voices. He keeps hold of her until they have opened the Tardis door and stepped through.

"What do we do?" Rose asks.

"We're going to track her." John says, starting to flip switches and pull levers.

"You can do that?"

"In theory." John is working the controls, but he keeps making irritated noises.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's just...different in here."

The console makes a strange sound, the lights in the room dim and come back up. Rose stumbles as the footing changes. When she reaches out her hand lands on one of the tall columns that always remind her of trees.

"Oh, thank you, that's much better." John says.

Rose watches him dance around the console. He catches her eye, jerks his head. "Come hold this lever. Alright, now lets see..."

The Tardis emits a deep twang and a series of clicking sounds, the engine engages with a heavy whoosh and then they are rocking and shuddering as the ship wheezes and wails.

Skye is skating along fast, her weight thrown forward as she works up momentum. Something appears right in front of her, a big blue box with a flashing light on top. She doesn't have time to stop or turn, and throws up her hands expecting an impact.

Instead, she passes right through, for a second she thinks she sees the man and one of the women from earlier, then she is out the other side and coming to a less than graceful stop. She takes a second to catch her breath, goes back to where the box was and skates in a slow circle.

Nothing there. She shakes her head, adjusts the strap on her bag and pushes off again. Within seconds, the incident has slipped from her mind. She has deliveries to make, after all, strange vanishing boxes are somebody else's problem.


	5. Chapter 5

The Tardis turns over with a heavy clunk, the engines engage and pump, seem to hesitate, then the ship dodges to the side sharply enough to almost knock Rose off of her feet before settling.

"Where are we?" Rose asks.

"Kelsey's house." John says.

He cautiously opens the door, steps out. They are in a small, dark room, lit only by the glow from the Tardis. A ring appears in the back wall, traced in an eerie bright green for a second before the interior goes transparent. Yellow light flickers in from the gas lamps, snow gusts through and begins to melt on the floor.

A voice drifts in from off to the side. "...not really 'real' but not 'not real' either, sort of between...oh- look at that."

The Doctor appears, waves at John and Rose. "Hello. See, I told you we'd be OK."

Fisher steps through the opening after her, looks around. "So, we're in...where are we?"

"If I'm not much mistaken, this would be the storage room in Dr. Kelsey's basement." The Doctor says.

"Right as usual." John says.

"Well, that was interesting." The Doctor shakes her head. "We may have to re-think this whole mechanism."

"What happened in there?" John asks.

"Nothing." The Doctor says. "No wolves, no trains, no creepy men. Followed the street lights for a few blocks and they brought us here."

"So, when this tunnel exists, it just connects here with New Shanghai." John says.

"That seems to be the case. Did you have any trouble finding us?"

John shakes his head. "Came right here."

"So, yeah, this probably just goes between those points. That article said that these...fungus things...sometimes have psychosomatic effects- maybe they're more than hallucinations." The Doctor shakes her head.

There is a muffled rattle from far on the other side of the wall. The Doctor looks over, narrows her eyes. "That's probably Kelsey. Come on, we need to get out of here."

"How?" Fisher hisses. "Not back in there."

"No, in here." The Doctor pushes the door to the Tardis opens and motions them all inside.

Rose and John immediately go through the door, but Fisher hesitates.

"Just get in." The Doctor tugs him in and closes the door behind them.

"Wow." Fisher says. "It's….it's bigger on the inside."

"Yes." The Doctor is flipping switches and turning dials. She reaches for a lever, stops herself, flicks several switches down.

"It's a tesseract." Fisher says.

"She's a Tardis. Here- you wanna have a surreal experience-" She bumps her eyebrows at Rose, then engages the engines.

The Tardis purrs to life, the turning of the engine vibrating the floor softly, almost silent. There is an expectant hush, Rose finds herself holding her breath, then a soft thump and low whistle.

"Did we...did we move?" Rose asks.

The Doctor nods, flips switches and turns dials until the ambient noise comes back up.

"I didn't know you could do that." Rose says.

"Yeah, well, it's no fun, is it." The Doctor shakes her head. "Fisher, ah, would you mind hanging about for a bit? I get the feeling we could use another hand."

Fisher nods. "Yeah, sure. How big is this place, exactly?"

"Mmm...big." The Doctor says, she's distracted poking buttons on the console again. "Big as a planet. Small planet. Dunno, really, measuring the inside is tricky. Besides, the outside is all that matters."

"The box." Fisher says.

"Yes." The Doctor says. "Alright- so Penny, and our friends Lean and Arrow, and some unknown female accomplice, were all in New Shanghai. And we know that, at least sometimes, there is a direct and unencumbered link between there and Kelsey's house in 1895."

The Doctor leans on the console, looks Fisher up and down speculatively. "Hey- do that 'I'm gonna squash you like a bug' thing." The Doctor rolls her head around then cracks her knuckles, Rose giggles. "I know, doesn't work anymore, does it."

"What are you thinking?" John asks.

"I'm thinking Scotland Yard just called in some...persuasion." The Doctor grins. "Not really- please don't beat people up. Unless you have to. Violence is rarely the answer."

"Good, I was getting worried there for a second." Fisher laughs. "You don't seem like you'd do that."

"Only if they really, really deserve it." The Doctor says. "And, usually not even then. Right, Rose, can you help him with the closet? I need to talk to my right hand man here-" Rose and John both groan "Oh, come on, you knew I was going to say it eventually. And, ah- rough around the edges, you know."

"Bad cop. Got it." Rose tugs on Fisher's arm. ΅Come on, future-boy."

The Doctor works controls on the console for a moment, then loads the video from outside of Plum Pudding's shop and focuses on the girl again.

"She's a Time Lady, isn't she." John says.

The Doctor nods.

"Who?"

"I'm not sure." The Doctor shakes her head.

"So, you're from another time?" Fisher asks Rose as they walk down the corridor.

"Me? Yeah. 21st century. Well, technically I'm from another dimension. I mean, I started off here, but I've been over there. "

"In another dimension."

"Yeah. It's not exciting. It's not even interesting, really. Pretty much same as where I came from." Rose tries the release on the closet door but it sticks. "Come on! Be nice!" She whacks it with the flat of her hand, the way you'd strike a disobedient horse, and the door slides free. "She'll mess with you, if you let her."

"The Doctor?"

"No-" Rose laughs "Well, yeah, a little. But no, I mean the Tardis. The ship. She's alive- sort of. It's complicated. She can't talk, but she'll sort of...feel...at you. I dunno. You get used to it. Here, put these on."

Fisher stares at the clothes she has tossed to him. The fabric has a rougher feel than he is used to, and smells like dark, gritty smoke. "This...this looks real."

"That's because it is." Rose says, the raises her voice. "Doctor! Doctor! Oy!"

"What!" The Doctor's voice comes through the PA, sounding slightly irritated.

"I'm not putting on this dress."

"Good, please don't tear my clothes to shreds." The Doctor says.

Rose groans, steps out of the closet room and shuts the door to let Fisher get dressed. "What are you going to make me do?"

The Doctor doesn't answer, and Rose leans against the wall, waits for what feels like an eternity for the door to open again. It rattles, thumps several times then relents.

"This is weird." Fisher says, tugging at the shirt sleeves.

Rose laughs. "Works for you, though. Come on."

"Should I...should I be as ok with this as I am?" Fisher asks. "I mean, I feel like I should be freaking out."

"The Doctor does that to you." Rose says.

"Who is she, really?" Fisher asks.

Rose shrugs. "The Doctor is the Doctor."

They come back into the console room, where the Doctor is leaning on a control panel watching figures scroll across a monitor.

"He's outside." The Doctor says, motioning to the door.

Rose steps out, blinking in bright sunlight. They have come to rest behind the shed in Kelsey's back yard, under a small stand of trees.

"Alright, we're looking for more of those...things." John peers around. "Look over there- there used to be a building that burned down. These things like carbon, good place to start."

"They like Carbon, huh." Rose says.

John grins. "Yeah. You know, she certainly seems to have taken a shine to him, too."

Rose laughs. "Is that really it? Just bump into somebody and take them along?"

"Yep." John says. "Well, people who do things like get sucked into alternate dimensions or attacked by mannequins and follow the number one rule."

"The Doctor Lies?" Rose arches her eyebrows.

"No, no, the Big Rule." John shoves her shoulder.

"Which is..." Rose says.

"Don't Panic." John grins.

"So what's the story on this place?" Rose asks.

"Well, according to Kelsey's partner- who he bought the house from- it used to be owned by a veterinarian. Who went crazy and began doing experiments with human bodies in the barn that used to be down there. It burned to the ground and took him with it."

Rose stops. "That's what he said?"

"No." John laughs. "Well, sort of."

They have been walking toward the trees he had pointed out, and now they come through them to find brush and vines covering the wreckage of foundation and remnants of burned timbers. John pulls a device out of his pocket and begins to move it slowly back and forth, the thing beeps softly and slowly, after a few minutes it picks up and emits a higher tone.

"Here." John pulls a small folding shovel out of his pocket, hands the probe to Rose. "Hold onto this."

He starts to dig, after a few shovel-fulls he slows, scraping the dirt carefully away with the tip of the tool, then putting it down to gently brush with his fingers.

"Well, look here. Hello, little friend." One of the egg creatures is pressed deep into the earth, it's tentacles wrapped around blackened and degraded wood.

"If you get us zapped into another dimension, I'm never talking to you again." Rose says.

John has been about to poke the thing, now he draws his finger back. "Fine, fine. Let me get a photo and we'll cover it back up."

They manage to find four more of them scattered about, marking each place after they snap photos with John's phone and cover the creatures again.

"Lets go have a look toward Kelsey's place."

….

"So, what are we doing?" Fisher asks.

"We're going to have a talk with Adrian Kelsey, who claims to be the father of the girl in that photo- who also supposedly went missing in 1895."

"So, that...city...is a tunnel between New Shangai in the present- my time, I mean- and 1895?"

"England. In 1895. Not to far from London."

"But- I don't speak English." Fisher protests.

"It's fine." The Doctor says. "The Tardis translates. You can override it if you really want to, but I wouldn't recommend it."

"What about diseases and...couldn't we change something here, and potentially destroy the future?"

The Doctor waves her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about that. I am, however, worried about losing that tie." She pulls the strip of cloth loose and then works it back into a proper knot, pats his chest, then puts hand at the top of her head and makes a line across, it stops just above his shoulder.

"What?" Fisher asks.

The Doctor shakes her head. "Nothing. Felt very short there for a second. Right- out we go."

She pulls the door open and shoves Fisher out before he can comment further, hops out behind and shuts the door. Fisher has stepped to the edge of the trees and is looking out past the corner of the shed at the house.

The Doctor nudges him, and he follows her across insect filled grass, past the side of the house. He reaches out to touch the wood, just to assure himself it's really there, they come away coated in fine gray dust. They step out into the front yard just as hooves can be heard approaching from down the street. A large cart horse comes by, pulling a load of hay with long even strides. It flicks it's ears in their direction but the driver, a bored looking boy in a floppy hat, appears to be taking a nap.

Fisher has been watching the horse, and it takes him a moment to hear the Doctor calling him. When he turns, she's standing by the front door with her hands on her hips, though she looks amused.

"Sorry, I've just never seen-" Fisher trots up beside her.

"I know." The Doctor laughs as she knocks on the door. "Dr. Kelsey! How nice to see you again. Mind if we come in and ask a few more questions?"

Adrian Kelsey steps back, surprised to see the Doctor and her new companion, who is a good bit broader than the man she's brought before. "Right. Ah, where is Mr Smith, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Oh, he's about somewhere." The Doctor says, waving her hand vaguely. "This is Constable Fisher."

Fisher has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing, manages to force his mouth into a straight line and nods, then decides he should probably tip his hat as well. He ends up grabbing it and pulling it off a moment later going through the door, and for a moment feels unbelievably self conscious, expecting Dr Kelsey to ask why he's bumbling about like an idiot, but the man doesn't seem to notice.

"Please, sit down. I'd offer you tea, but I-"

"That's fine." The Doctor smiles and sits down, crosses her legs and puts her hands on her knees. "Have a seat, Dr. Kelsey."

He sits down opposite the Doctor. Fisher walks slowly across the room, looking at the items on the shelves and mantle, stops to stand behind Kelsey's right shoulder, where the man can just see him out of the side of his eye.

"I put in inquiry in as to the circumstances surrounding the death of your wife- or should I say alleged wife. Strange, there don't seem to be any records of the marriage. And no one- including your landlord- can ever recall seeing you in the company of a woman." She lets the words sit heavy in the air for what feels like a very long time, the silence filling the room like a living thing. When she speaks it almost comes as a relief. "Tell me about the girl. Where did she come from?"

Kelsey swallows with a dry throat. "In Gods honest truth, Doctor, I do not know. I found her...or perhaps she found me...but where she is from, no, I cannot say."

"When was this?"

"The first night I spent in this house." Kelsey looks down at his hands, flexes and relaxes his fingers slowly. "I awoke, it was very late, early, perhaps two thirty. There was a barn, down at the back of the yard there. I saw...it looked like a fire. The barn had burned down many years ago, but there was a flickering light. It went out after a moment, but I took up a lantern and went down to make sure. That was when...she was there, on the ground. This little girl without a stitch on her, completely clean, too, hands and feet, as though she had just come from nowhere, appeared like that.

I took her inside, her pulse was racing but when I listened at her chest she..." Kelsey balks again.

"She has two hearts." The Doctor says.

"Yes." Kelsey says, looking surprised. "How did you know?"

"Call it a hunch." The Doctor says.

"She woke after several hours. She seemed...well, it's hard to tell with children, you know. Coherent, at least to some degree, she could name colours and animals and spoke quite well, very intelligent. She couldn't tell me her name, or where she was from, but she insisted that she did not have parents. I began to call her Penny, after my childhood friend who she resembled. As far as I am aware, she never recalled her name."

"What about other things?" The Doctor asks.

"She...she told me she came from a place very far away. That her world was in possession of technology far superior to our own. She looked like a child, but she must have been quite old. Do they age quite slowly, her kind? Whatever they are?"

"Yes." The Doctor says speculatively. "She'll live perhaps seven or eight hundred years if no outside force interferes."

Kelsey thinks about this for a moment. "What is she? Where is she from?"

"As Penny said, a long way away." The Doctor smiles. "Now, Dr Kelsey, it is very important you be frank with us. Where did Penny go, when you said she was visiting her aunt?"

"A man would come for her in a hansom drawn by a gray mare. I only spoke to the driver once- I didn't get his name, sort of a tall, thin fellow in a threadbare suit. That was the morning after Penny went missing. We had a very brief conversation, he said he had come to fetch her and when I told him that she wasn't here, he tipped his hat and left. I believe he was the one who reported it at the station, by the time I reached town news had already begun to spread."

"Did Mrs Turner ever approach the driver?"

"She took her down several times." Kelsey says.

"Did she ever say anything about him?"

"She never volunteered anything, and...well, I felt it wouldn't be prudent to ask and reveal that I had no idea where my child was going off to."

"And she, Mrs Turner, believed that Penny was a normal child?" The Doctor asks.

Kelsy nods. "Yes- well, I told her that she had a medical condition that caused a high heart rate, but that it wasn't dangerous." Kelsey muses for a moment. "They were very close, the two of them. I'd hear them talking sometimes, late at night."

"And the night that she died?"

"It was as I said." Kelsey says.

"Did you ever go into the city in your basement?"

"No. That's all true."

"Do you know...is she...alright...do you think? Or did something..."

"I think, Dr. Kelsey, that this person is probably completely unharmed. What do you know about this...fungus I suppose...did you ever speak about it with her?"

"I think she knew more than she said." Kelsey says. "She...told me I shouldn't touch it."

"That's probably very good advice." The Doctor says. "Did she help you in your practice as well?"

Kelsey gives his head a little shake. "She knew things about medicine. Formulations. Little changes, or new treatments. Sometimes she would say things that...I think, wherever she was from, they must have been considerably more advanced than we are."

"Mm." The Doctor makes a noncommittal sound.

The front door opens, and footsteps can be heard in the hall. Rose and John Smith appear from the hall, both with dirty hands and knees. Rose is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, a light jacket tied around her waist, and Fisher shifts so he can see Kelsey's reaction to the strange clothing. The man gives the two newcomers a glance, nods to them in recognition then immediately turns his eyes back to the Doctor.

"Pardon us for a moment." The Doctor nods for Fisher to come along and they step out into the hall, close the door behind them.

"Whatcha got?" The Doctor asks.

"It's all over that old barn site, and we found a few coming back up here. Looks like there are more, but they're deep. Down there, by the basement." John says.

"I know what was there." The Doctor snaps her fingers abruptly. "And I know why that room was walled up."

"This house was owned by a vet, right? Intensive care unit is going to be inside the house. And when you have sick, possibly infectious animals, you need a way to quickly dispose of the corpses."

"Of course." John rolls his eyes. "There was an incinerator there."

"Probably in a separate room, I bet there's an old doorway still behind the back wall. Maybe they knocked part of the foundation out- maybe it fell in by itself...maybe those things found their way up here and broke in." The Doctor stops, goes still for a second then jerks sharply. "The Tardis!"

"What?" Rose asks.

"Dammit. Kelsey! We'll be back! Come on!" The Doctor breaks into a run, the three others look at eachother before following.

They get into the yard just as the engines start up.

"No!" The Doctor barks, but it's to late, the ship is already fading by the time they round the shed.

"Somebody took the Tardis?" Rose says. "But how-"

"That little witch!" The Doctor stops in the middle of the imprint of her ship, flashes the screwdriver around, makes a face followed by a series of frustrated sounds and gestures which end with her kicking the ground and stomping her foot several times. "I'm gonna get you for this you...you... devil woman!"


	6. Chapter 6

Cold rain mixed with sleet taps at the window glass. John Smith throws another log onto the fire, sending up a shower of orange sparks. The heat has been slowly burning off the damp air in Kelsey's guest room, and fogging up the Doctor's glasses.

She is sitting on the bed, legs crossed at the ankle, flipping through a stack of complicated looking medical formulas. "Ten, twenty years out, maybe, I think..." The Doctor wipes the lenses on her shirt, peers at them then scrubs at a persistent smudge.

Fisher has been walking around the room, looking at things. He pulls books down and opens them, takes small ornaments down and turns them over in his hands to check the bottom.

The door opens, and Rose comes back in, her hair wrapped in a towel which she removes and hangs beside the hearth. She leans down to kiss John on the forehead as he pokes at the bottom log, then slides onto the bed and scoots up beside the Doctor.

"What are you looking at?"

"Kelsey's formulas- the one our mystery girl helped him with." The Doctor tilts the pages so she can see.

Rose takes one of them, looks it over. "This looks..."

"Like a bad idea?" The Doctor laughs. "Yeah, well, actually this is...better...than most of what they'd get around here. Almost suspiciously advanced...he might have gotten caught if they'd been at it much longer."

Rose pats the Doctor on the the shoulder, and she shifts an arm to let Rose put her head on her chest.

"You're wet." The Doctor comments.

"A little." Rose says.

"Do I need to separate you two?" John says loudly.

"So, what's the deal with Mrs Turner and Penny?" Fisher asks.

"I think they're the same person." The Doctor says.

"What? How's that possible?"

"People like...us...her and me, we don't die properly." The Doctor says.

"Like you." Fisher says.

"Yes." The Doctor says. "Time Lords. Time Ladies, I suppose. Same thing."

"Lady." Rose sniggers.

"I know." The Doctor grins. " Anyway- when we get hurt badly enough, we regenerate, get a new body."

"As a kid?" Fisher asks.

"Sometimes." The Doctor says. "Not very often. It's sort of...random. Most of the time. What Kelsey saw, what he described as fire, was a regeneration. Now, theoretically it could be two different people, but you see this one, Missy, she's always up to something. And she really, really likes to irritate me as much as possible. And she has an MO of stealing my Tardis."

"Wait- how many of you are there?" Fisher asks.

"Um...well, not many." The Doctor says. "It's...complicated."

"So, what do you guys do, run around fixing things?"

The Doctor bursts into laughter. "Oh my, no. Well, we're not supposed to. I do. Sort of. Sometimes. Not really."

Rose hugs her. "You do fine."

"Thank you, dear, I appreciate that." The Doctor closes the folder, taps it against her leg with her free hand as she thinks. "Tomorrow we probably need to go pull down that wall, see what's behind it."

"And tonight?" Rose asks.

"Tonight-" The Doctor blows out a breath, gives Rose's shoulder a squeeze "we should all try to get some rest. And keep an eye and ear out for these so called snakes in the walls. Maybe the damp will bring them out."

There is a knock on the door, John is closest and rises to open it. Kelsey stands in the hall, wearing an overcoat, a wide brimmed hat in his hand.

"Ah, Dr. Kelsey. Found someplace to stay the night?" The Doctor calls from the bed.

"I'm going to go to my practice. I still have a few things to pack up." Kelsey sighs. "I...appreciate you doing this."

John follows him down to the front door, watches him climb into his covered wagon and set the horse moving with a shake of the reins. When he comes back up into the guest room he finds the Doctor standing by the fire. When he steps in, she starts talking.

"Alright, as of now, here's what we have to go on- this person, Missy, identifying herself as Mrs Turner, comes here for reasons unknown- maybe she got stuck, maybe she has a plan. After she 'died', she was taken to the morgue, and then vanished. She must have been transported somehow, it's even possible that she faked her own death simply to be removed from the house, and later just got up and walked away. Whatever the circumstances, she then appeared after having traveled back in time and regenerated, where Kelsey found her."

"But, wait, if she just wants the Tardis, why didn't they take it from the train?"

"Because she needed it to leave from here" The Doctor says. "That whole thing on the train could have been set up at any time, and if she just dumped us into the basement we wouldn't be doing all this running around. Which she obviously wants us to do."

The Doctor sits down on the bed, looks around the room. "She wanted an investigation, she wanted records...her death creates a fixed point in time, events here can't be altered...but why did she bring us here?"

The wind kicks up, making the roof creak. The howling dies down, but the sound in the walls persists. The four of them freeze, listening. Something slowly sliding up inside the hollow parts of the structure.

"Snakes in the walls." The Doctor says in a hushed voice.

The floor shudders, dust drifts down from the ceiling. The group moves as one, streaming out into the hall and down the stairs.

The basement door is rattling on it's hinges, greenish light and mist pours from the cracks. The Doctor wrenches it open and they stand, looking down.

The basement is full of mist, the back wall crumbling away as light presses in from the other side. The Doctor is going down the stairs, they follow, the mist wraps up around to their thighs.

The Doctor lifts the sonic screwdriver and aims it at the wall. The last bonds sepperating the two realities pull apart and the wall breaks away, dissolves into bright green light which burns into pulsing darkness.

The Doctor pulls a flashlight out of her pocket and aims it down into what has become a deep tunnel.

The basement ceiling cracks loudly, the walls buckle as the foundation begins to give way. Muddy water trickles between the stones.

"Come on-" The Doctor motions them into the tunnel. "Quick, now!"

She steps in just as one of the beams gives way, the floor above crashing down with an explosion of dust and debris.

The mist covers the ground under their feet, and after a few yards the mist clears enough so they can see that they are walking on millions of tiny bones, birds and rodents, occasionally something the size of a small cat.

A wind begins to drift over them, carrying with it a sweet, mildewed smell, like rotting fruit. The tunnel widens, opens out into a cave which glows green with phosporescent fungus. The walls and floor are lined with the egg creatures, all perfectly still.

"The Temple of MogDoth." The Doctor says. "Oraxacon Beta."

John is shaking his head in disbelief. "How far back have we come?"

"Millions of years." The Doctor says.

Rose is staring at the statues. "Look at those things..."

The Doctor turns in a slow circle. "There are hundreds of these things…if Missy was here...she could have created a web all through space and time. And we can't do anything about it. The whole thing is locked in place by a single point. If we un-do any of it, the whole thing falls apart. And takes the universe with it."

The Doctor's eyes widen.

"I know that look." John says. "You figured it out."

"Right- and it all starts just before I met you two." The Doctor says. "I told you that it snagged me right after I stepped out of the Tardis- well, I was responding to what I thought was a distress signal. Now, I think it was a trap- Missy set these things up, and once they grabbed me she took the Tardis and set about her mischief. For whatever reason, she became stranded here. She found herself in the employ of Dr. Kelsey, and probably figured out what was going on rather quickly. She then kept an eye on the situation, assisting Kelsey, until faking her own death. She came back to the old barn site, where the Tardis still was- that was the sound Kelsey heard, her taking off.

She left in the Tardis, set it to automatically transport and make it look as though it had been stolen from here later, and she returned by the mechanism of these Mog Doth creatures." The Doctor says. "Perhaps they were defending themselves. She was sent back in time from the point she started as Penny, where she ended up at the old barn site and regenerated. Kelsey brought her in, and she started cahootin with herself. She then faked her disappearance, set Lean and Arrow after us. "

"Wait-΅ Rose waves a hand. "So, the Tardis that we were in..."

"Was the one that was taken from here earlier" The Doctor says.

"So, where's the one you came from?" Rose asks. "Originally?"

"Right where it's always been- here." The Doctor says. "She even drew us a picture."

She lifts the sonic screwdriver and it emits a beep, there is a responding chirp from the shadows at the far end of the cavern and the Tardis lights flash.

"So, where is she now?" Rose asks.

"She had to drop the Tardis on that train at Victoria station." The Doctor says. "We'll have to start there. She must have these things set up, growing somewhere, maybe on a coal stop, or in the train itself."

The egg creatures remain still as they walk past, the Doctor unlocks and opens the door and the four of them step inside. The doors close, the engines engage, and the Tardis begins to flicker and shimmer as it dissolves. As the box emits a final burst of light, the things in the cave finally stir, begin to move, crawling on their tentacled legs to converge on the place that the Tardis had been.

This time, the ride is not as smooth. Fisher stumbles and presses himself against the wall as she ship twists and bucks as though slammed by a turbulent current.

They settle with a heavy bump, and after a moment the Doctor pulls the door open to look outside.

"Oh...oh dear." The Doctor says quietly.

John, Rose, and Fisher join her at the door.

Victoria Station has become a tangled mass of heavy dark vines. They can see more of them growing on the buildings visible through the broken roof. The air is heavy with the sickly sweet rotting stench.

"Oh, Missy." The Doctor murmurs. "What have you done?"

The world seems to shift, darkness sweeps down from the end of the station, passes them before they can react. The vines and smell stay, but now the air smells like exhaust and chemicals, the cement under their feet slightly damp.

"This is New Shanghai" Fisher says. "Where we first got taken."

"It's to big." The Doctor says. "This mechanism, it's out of control."

There is another shudder, the tunnel vanishes and is replaced by a starry sky, they are standing by the ruins of Kelsey's house now, wreathed in heavy vines which extend out, creeping along the ground to reach up into the trees, vanishing down toward the other houses.

"Back in the Tardis." The Doctor says.

Rose is happy to comply, the shifting scenery and smell are making her queasy.

"That's how you got here." The Doctor says. "It's starting to break down the barriers between dimensions. We have to find some way to stop it."

"I thought you said that would make the universe explode or something." Rose says.

The Doctor doesn't answer, flipping switches, turning dials, pulling levers. There is an intensity in the way she moves, her face set in concentration.

The Tardis slams through time, skidding as she chases a bright point, catches it and anchors herself.

The Doctor pulls the door open and steps out. There is a muffled scream, the sound of a struggle, then the Doctor drags a blanketed bundle through and slams the door.

"Go." The Doctor makes a motion at John. "Go!"

He shakes his head, leans over to engage the engines. The Tardis reels, shudders, fights for a moment then seems to gain traction. The Doctor puts the struggling parcel on the floor, where it throws the blanket off in an explosion of hands and feet.

"Oh my God, look at you." The Doctor says. "You're absolutely adorable."

"What do you think you're doing, kidnapping me!" The girl snaps.

"Kidnapping you? You shouldn't even be here. Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused? Those...things...have taken over the world."

"Hmpf." She crosses her arms and looks away.

"Rose, Fisher, John- this is the Mistress, aka Missy, aka Penny Kelsey."

"I hate you all." Penny says.

"Shut up." The Doctor leans down and grabs her arm, dragging her to her feet. "Tell us how to stop this stuff."

"Ow! Leggo." Penny twists away.

"How do I stop it!" The Doctor demands.

"Ok, ok, it causes interdimentional galls. You have to break a fixed point in time and merge the two universes."

"Like the death of a Time Lord." The Doctor sighs.

Penny smiles at her sweetly.

"Alright." The Doctor says. "You came and snatched the Tardis from me, if you hadn't done that none of this would be possible. We need to go back and alter that point."

The Tardis protests when the Doctor sets a course, seems to fight landing but finally settles.

The Doctor pulls the door open. She can see the Tardis, the Tardis from the past, sitting just around the corner of a building. She hears the door open, there is a brief flash and a puff of snow, then the street goes still. The Doctor steps out quickly, motions for the others to follow.

"Come on." She pushes the door open and waves them all inside.

"Won't she just take the other Tardis?" Rose asks.

The Doctor shakes her head. "That one will vanish as soon as we leave. Or rather, it will never have been here."

The engine turns over with a heavy whooshing pump. The Tardis shudders, there is a strange feeling as though the world outside is falling away. The lights flicker, the ship groans as if under immense pressure.

In the street they have just left, Missy steps out of an alley, frowns and looks around. She was sure the Tardis had been here...but no, nothing. She shrugs, shoves her hands into her pockets and turns, nodding to the two men in the alley as she passes. Lean and Arrow fall in on either side of her, heads lowered under the collars of their long coats.

Dimensional barriers ripple, begin to break but, unable to tear apart due to the lattice between them, merge like two soap bubbles. The whole of creation buckles, galaxies explode into being, bizarre new life forms are born and die in the blink of an eye.

The Tardis smashes into something which turns out to be the ground, the engines falter and stall, the ambient noise dropping to a barely audible hum.

"Oh...ow." The Doctor pulls herself up on the console. "Any survivors?"

Rose and John stumble to their feet.

"Fisher? Penny?" The Doctor says loudly, then sighs.

"The paradox took them." John says.

"To bad, I rather liked him." The Doctor says. "Oh well, come on, lets see how bad it is out there."

She pulls the door open and leans out, then steps through.

"This...this is our house." Rose says

"Is it?" The Doctor says. "Well, that's convenient, isn't it."

Rose walks up, takes the key hidden under a rock and unlocks the front door. The lights downstairs are still on, mail has been pushed through the slot and scattered on the entryway floor.

"Come in for a minute?" John asks.

"Yeah, Ok." The Doctor says.

He slides an arm around her, squeezing her shoulders as they walk up the short garden path. John holds the door for her, stops to turn before closing it to look out, sharp eyes sweeping carefully over the street. Then the door snaps shut, latch clicking into place.

A little girl steps out of the house next door, pulls out a jump-rope and begins to skip down the sidewalk, singing softly, almost under her breath.

"Grandfather, grandfather, has a box..."


End file.
